


carpe diem

by andchaos



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Explicit Sexual Content, I spit on DDL for fun and focus on what REALLY matters (tends bar), M/M, POV Alternating, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23603377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: Right as their relationship is getting more tumultuous and more potential than ever, a freak accident at the bar sends Mac and Dennis back to 2005. They don't just have to figure out how to get home - when they get separated with the other's younger self, both pairs have to figure out how to get back to each other.
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 53
Kudos: 141





	1. begin again

**2017**

They slipped away after Charlie and Frank went, disappeared into the bathroom and barricaded the door. Dee rushed after them, banging her fists on the door and telling them not to pull out his tapeworm in the bar and she goddamn means it. Their lack of answer suggests well enough what they think of her demands to take care of it in the grime and ruin of their own apartment.

Dennis catches Mac’s eye, and Mac tips his head. They each grab one side of the crate and head to the alley. They’re quiet, all the way to the car.

Mac speaks first.

“I’m sorry about...you know, making you do that in front of the gang,” he says as Dennis carefully sets his end on the ground and opens the trunk. Mac’s eyes flicker to him and away. “I, you know, I tried to get you to come outside with me so that we could—you know, so that we’d be alone when you—”

“Mac, it’s fine.”

Dennis can hear the flatness of his own voice, knows it must be driving Mac insane. He resists the urge to set his jaw and picks up the crate again instead, and together they load it into the back of the Range Rover. Dennis is moving too slowly, awkward. Gentleness doesn’t sit naturally in his hands. He knows Mac’s probably giving a weird look to the back of his head as he fusses at the corners, yanking at the sweatshirt he put down until it can stop the door from hitting the box in case anything shifts, but when he turns around Mac’s just watching him with an indecipherable expression. It’s unnerving; Dennis can usually read him like an open book.

He goes to shut the trunk but Mac beats him there, fingers curling around the handle in the same movement that Dennis draws back his arm. They used to be like that, he thinks; used to move like they were sinusoidal waves, tied together to the same brain. One pushes, the other’s pulling in the exact same second. Instincts that worked together like a perfect mirror, or one of those really good ballet dancers on TV that Mac can’t take his eyes off of even though he pretends to agree when Dennis says dancing isn’t a sport.

Except now it just makes their hands brush, and Dennis yanks his back like he’s been shocked. Mac blinks at him, nervous and unusually reserved.

“Come on,” Dennis says after a moment, trying to jump right over the awkwardness. He jerks his head to do something with the restless energy thrumming inside.

They drive home in silence. Dennis drums his fingers on the steering wheel at every red light, terrified of how badly he wants to look over at Mac, an instinct made worse because he can feel Mac’s eyes already on him every single time. Dee’s apartment is dark when they get there, and the old, worn ache for their old apartment—for _home_ —throbs in him for a few, paralyzing seconds until Mac flicks on the lights. He unfreezes when he sees Mac cleaning stuff out from under the couch.

“What are you doing?” he snaps, and for the first time since Mac gave him the RPG he feels closer to his old self. More recognizable. Lashing out feels good; it feels familiar.

“I’m...making space, to...to put the crate under the couch.”

“No!” Dennis strides over and yanks his arm away. “No, no! We can’t—We’re not putting it there. It needs to be somewhere secure.”

Dennis wishes he hadn’t said it as soon as it comes out. It’s embarrassing, the note of worry in his voice. He knows Mac can hear it, wonders what he’s thinking. He can’t look at him.

But Mac only says, “Okay,” and stands up to survey the room better.

“Goddamn it,” Dennis growls. He can feel it, some of that trademark anger crawling up his throat. It feels an awful lot like it does before he cries. “Goddamn it! There’s no fucking room in this apartment with all your shit on the floor!”

It’s not true; an array of pajamas currently occupy the most space on the floor from Dennis trying them on last night until he found a suitable outfit to go to sleep in, but Mac’s smart enough not to say anything. Instead he opens the hall closet to peer inside.

“Maybe if we cleaned all this junk out?” he says.

Dennis edges closer to look over his shoulder. It still—stings, being this close to Mac, like his personal space bubble’s covered in spikes and it’s pricking Dennis’s own. It’s why he rarely comes near him anymore, not near enough to feel calm. He used to do it all the time as casual and often as they said hello, but now it just feels awkward and distracting when his hands land on Mac’s shoulders. He can feel Mac grow still.

Still, the closet’s a viable option. There’s nothing useful in here, mostly just the remnants of Dee’s many, many failed attempts to be good at some kind of sport. Dennis recognizes the getup she wore when they all tried out for the Eagles, what feels like a goddamn lifetime ago, and buried beneath a snowboard (she’s better at skiing) and surfboard (she’s better at walking, although not much) and several different colored flight suits (when the hell did she ever go skydiving? But Dennis is sure she was no good at that either, because they all still have their tags) are a few winter jackets she never wears anymore. Dennis’s shoulders relax.

“Yeah, I guess...I guess this isn’t too bad,” he concedes. Mac looks up at him and beams.

Together, they toss Dee’s shit into one of their empty boxes and stow it out on the fire escape, to be set aflame later or just tossed in a dumpster. Depends on how tired they are after dinner. Speaking of which—

“Are you hungry yet?” Dennis asks as they step back out of the closet, RPG now safely tucked away in the back with plenty of padding. “We could go get some chimichangas or something. If you’re in the mood.”

It’s not a real question for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is that Mac could _always_ go for dinner, especially if it’s Mexican food, especially if he thinks or knows Dennis hasn’t eaten in awhile. “In awhile” for Mac could mean anything, though, even just a couple of hours, which is why Dennis is pretty sure he’ll say, with his eyes going huge and earnest—

“Sure. Yeah, you know I’m always down for Mexican food. I just wanna charge my phone for like, twenty minutes if that’s cool.”

Dennis’s throat feels blocked up. He nods, eyes on the ground.

“Yeah,” he says, brow knitting together. “Sure, whatever you need to do.”

Mac leaves, which is good because it means that he definitely didn’t notice the bigger reason that Dennis suggested dinner. He blinks quickly and dabs at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve before Mac comes back.

“Hey Dennis?” he calls, twenty minutes later when Dennis is watching an old episode of Project Badass where Mac drove his cousin’s motorcycle off a ramp into the Long Island Sound. They had to travel all the way to New York just to film it because Country Mac was living with an ex-boyfriend at the time, though of course Mac was twenty-two and stupid and hadn’t picked up on the signs. He tried to do a front flip in midair and ended up crashing headfirst and got immediately taken out by a wave; it was brutal, the motorcycle hit him in the head before it washed away. Country Mac was pissed. Dennis was too, after Mac finally woke up on the beach so Dennis could stop crying. He knew head wounds bled worse, but it was different seeing it for the first time with his own eyes.

Dennis mutes the tape. Mac talks too much at the intro of this one anyway.

“Yeah?”

“I just checked the wait time, and El Purepecha is closed. _Closed_.”

“What? It’s closed?”

“Closed, dude!” Mac appears in the doorway scowling, bare foot kicking at the frame. “I guess there was some sort of fire or something. Goddamn it.” He looks up. “We could hit up the Cantina. Strong drinks.”

“Nah, Cantina Dos Segundos is too expensive,” Dennis says, making a face. “I don’t like it there.”

“Yeah, me neither,” he sighs.

Dennis watches the silent TV as something ugly churns inside of him. It’s there a lot these days, that feeling that he could fly off the handle at any minute. Onscreen Charlie high fives Mac over some joke he makes about Dennis and the fish market across the street; Dennis never got what was funny about that, but then he never really listens to this part of the tape because the wind makes Mac’s hair do this stupid flyaway thing and he can only think about smoothing it down during this part. Why hadn’t twenty-three year old Dennis done something about that? And why do things always go wrong? He just wanted to take Mac out to dinner. That’s all, and he can’t even get that right.

“I could cook us something,” Mac offers, and Dennis looks up with his heart lifting so fast it makes him dizzy.

Mac showers while the oven preheats, and when Dee comes home she throws herself down on the couch to loudly complain about Charlie and Frank, and then joins Dennis in yelling even more fervently at Law & Order. Mac shoots her strange little glances when he comes back out, the whole time he’s cooking. Dennis catches him at it sometimes but Mac never says anything to either of them except chitchat, so he keeps it in his hands and turns it over privately, to himself.

“You know that Charlie tried to get out Frank’s tapeworm with Fight Milk? Goddamn Fight Milk,” says Dee once they’re all settled in to eat, beers uncapped and TV on low in the living room.

“Please, no worm talk over dinner,” Dennis says.

“That’s really dumb, Dee,” says Mac, pointing at her with his fork. “Fight Milk is for bodyguards...it would just make the tapeworm, like, twice as strong or something. You know. Verile.”

“I don’t know about that, but it could probably give him a second parasite, that’s for damn sure.”

“Fight Milk is a health drink, Dee!”

“It makes people shit!”

“Please,” Dennis yells, slamming his hand on the table so loud the silverware rattles, “no more talking about vomit and shitting and sexually competent worms at the dinner table!”

Everyone looks at each other. They fall mercifully silent.

“She started it,” Mac mutters after a moment, but he goes quiet again when Dennis shoots him a glare and looks down at his plate.

“Thank you,” Dennis says, more measuredly. “Dee, pass me the hot sauce.”

She does, saying, “Can you pick up some more when you go to the store?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He can feel eyes on the side of his face, but Mac looks away when Dennis catches him. It doesn’t stop him seeing Mac’s expression, all peeled back and soft. It makes Dennis’s feel too hot; he tugs at his collar and puts the bottle down. Dee glances up.

“What, now you don’t want any?” she teases.

Dennis flicks a crumb at her.

“Just realized that if I don’t finish the bottle, then I don’t have to be the one who buys more,” he tells her.

“Oh—Dennis, come on!” she complains. “You’re already going to the store.”

“Not my problem,” says Dennis. “You’d already finished half the bottle before I ever got a drop.”

“Mac’s been using my hot sauce since before you even moved in!” says Dee, gesturing at him, but Dennis doesn’t look. He can feel Mac’s eyes on him again anyway, making him itch under the collar.

“I don’t care,” Dennis says, chuckling. “You can buy your own groceries.”

“It’s like three bucks!”

“Then you shouldn’t have a problem with it,” Dennis says, smiling at her all wide.

He does look up this time, and finds Mac watching him with amusement crinkling the lines beside his eyes. Dennis smiles back.

Dee reveals she bought a second box of chocolates when she picked up the one for Charlie, and she and Dennis pick at it while Mac takes a second helping of dinner. Mac accidentally kicks his leg when he goes to put the big bowl back in the center of the table, and he murmurs an apology.

It happens, then: Mac flicks his eyes up to watch him as he lifts the spoon to his mouth, and his foot nudges Dennis’s beneath the table. It’s gentle and only lasts a second before he pulls back, eyes down so his lashes brush his cheeks. Dennis always found that so unfair, how naturally pretty his eyelashes were. He used to beg Mac to let him try out mascara on him when he was in college and started really experimenting with makeup, but Mac never let him.

He nudges his foot into Mac’s more insistently than Mac did, pushing forward. Beside him, Dee’s reading the back of the box and having a one-sided debate about whether or not she’s holding dark chocolate, but Dennis is watching Mac take another bite of his food. He looks up at Dennis again and this time his cheeks are warmer. Dennis realizes his hands are shaking and clutches his own thigh to stop it.

They stay up to watch a movie, all three of them. Dennis squeezes into the middle of the couch between them, but Mac picks a really boring movie about a dog. It’s a cartoon, and the dog’s a superhero, so naturally Dennis falls asleep less than an hour into it.

He wakes up to Dee shaking his shoulder with her face close and he rears back, rubbing at his eyes.

“Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me, Dee.”

“Get up, dick. I’m turning out the lights.” She straightens up. “And heads up, me and Mac already got ready for bed so you’re sleeping in the middle tonight, boner.”

With a shit-eating grin, she leaves him alone. Dennis mutters obscenities as he gets up to use the bathroom; with no good spots in the bed left to rush for, Dennis takes his time with his skincare routine tonight. He climbs over Old Black Man, already fast asleep at the foot of the bed, and settles underneath the covers. Dee’s snoring quietly, and he thinks Mac’s out too until he feels him turn over. He’s facing him now and Dennis’s breathing feels heavier but still not enough.

“Goodnight, Den,” Mac murmurs sleepily.

“Night,” Dennis grunts.

He closes his eyes, but he hates sleeping on his back and he knows it will be a long night in the middle. It always is for him and Dee; Mac could fall asleep through a house fire and probably not know anything had even happened until morning, especially if he’s had something to drink.

He was sober tonight, though, at least for the last couple of hours. Mac’s closer to him than usual. Even crammed three to a bed, they have an unspoken agreement on some degree of personal space so the three of them can all relax. Tonight, though, Mac’s close enough that his elbow rests against Dennis’s left arm. The steady sound of his breathing calms Dennis’s heart rate, but it isn’t enough to help him fall asleep.

Today was weird. He can see that more clearly now, it was hard to tell while it was happening but—they broke pattern today. He shouldn’t have given Dennis the gift, Dennis shouldn’t have _accepted_ it. The look on Mac’s face, it was—God, it was fucking unbearable. It made Dennis’s heart feel too full to even look at it, aching to burst right through his chest in the most gorey way imaginable. It still hurt, just thinking about it. He didn’t _deserve_ to feel that way. He didn’t know why Mac wanted him to hurt.

But...that isn’t Mac’s way, is it? Dennis thinks, turning his head to the side. Mac is already asleep next to him, like a huge warm boulder that gets knocked out cold as soon as his head hits a pillow. He looks younger when he sleeps, face all smoothed out and his lips gently parted. Dennis is seized with the sudden urge to trace them with his fingertip.

He jolts, shifting away from Mac on instinct. Trying to get away, away from that stupid, magnetic pull.

But Mac moves with him. Magnets, after all—he inches closer in his sleep, taking up that new missing space.

God, Dennis thinks. He can see all of Mac’s freckles from up this close, even in the dark. He’s got them on his face and his shoulders and splattered all over his back, too, although Dennis can’t see those from here. Sometimes, and especially when Mac’s sleeping, Dennis thinks that he needs Mac so badly that it hurts. He needs to keep looking at him, he needs to touch him to make sure he’s real. Right now, he needs Mac to stay asleep with his parted mouth and his knee digging into Dennis’s stomach. Even though it hurts.

It’s weird, he thinks; he feels so calm right now. He shouldn’t be. Right? But the look on Mac’s face when he wished him a happy Valentine’s Day...Mac knew, then. And Dennis did too.

His heartbeat is still disconcertingly steady, easy and spreading warmth down to his fingers now. With a start, he realizes that he’s been watching the dark ceiling—and Mac’s sleeping face—for awhile already.

Sighing, Dennis pulls some sheets off Dee to bundle up better, and he turns onto his side. It brings him even closer to Mac. Their feet are touching, just bumping together beneath the covers. Mac’s freckles are so prominent from here and Dennis catches himself smiling; no one else knows that about him, do they? Even if they slept with him once it wouldn’t be enough to catalogue them all. But Dennis knows, and that’s just for him.

Before he closes his eyes, he takes one last good look at Mac’s face. Even in the dark, it’s easy to see that he’s smiling gently in his sleep too.

Dennis doesn’t make it down to the bar until past noon the next day; he starts the day with a text from Frank, telling him he’s got his head stuck in one of their cabinets. Dennis plans on ignoring it until Frank sends another one that Charlie’s got his head stuck too.

Dennis sighs, shoving his phone into his back pocket.

“What’s up?” says Dee, looking up from where she’s folding a few shirts she decided didn’t go with her jeans today.

“S.O.S. from Charlie and Frank,” he sighs. “Go, get to the bar. I’ll handle those idiots. And take Mac with you, will you? He’s supposed to pick up an order for us during lunch.”

By the time he gets down there, Dee’s on her third beer of the day and Mac’s playing darts; Dee looks up, already passing him a Coors too.

“How’d it go?” she asks.

Dennis rolls his eyes.

“Idiot One and Idiot Two are in the car,” he says. “Charlie’s making Frank put on a few more band-aids before he comes in because he doesn’t want him catching another tapeworm.”

“Does he think you can _catch_ a tapeworm?” Mac asks, looking up from his solo game.

Dennis shrugs.

“I don’t even pretend to _try_ to figure out what goes on inside that kid’s head,” he says. “It’s way too freaky in there.”

Mac’s grin lights up his whole face, he looks so earnest like that. It makes his cheeks flush a little. Dennis catches himself smiling back and he comes closer, beer swinging from his hand. For a second, things feel—good, like they haven’t in a while. It used to be easy, being near Mac. Dennis nearly forgot.

“Are you winning?” he asks, gesturing toward the dart board.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Well, it’s easy to win when you’re playing against yourself.” He offered out the dart he was holding. “Wanna play?”

“No,” says Dennis, and Mac’s face falls. “You’re not even gonna be a challenge, playing like that. It wouldn’t be any fun.”

“Oh.” Mac straightened, eyes lighting up. God, everything he did was so _obvious_. Dennis could read every thought and feeling as it tripped across his face. “Maybe you can teach me.”

His eyes track Mac’s hopeful face for a long moment. It’s not his fault; it’s fun to make Mac wait.

“Sure,” he says, and Mac splits into a grin so wide that Dennis has to look away.

A break from pattern, again. He’s got to stop doing this. Well, he’s trying.

Frank and Charlie come in finally, Charlie scratching at his cheek and making the band-aid on his jaw come up at the corner. He makes a beeline for the bar, but Frank digs out his bong and comes over to kick his feet up in a booth and watch Mac and Dennis play darts.

“You’re holding it wrong,” he says, “you’re going to jab somebody’s eye out when you pull your arm back.”

“Don’t help, Frank, I’ve got this,” Dennis snaps. He sets his hands on Mac’s shoulders and turns them, gentling his voice to say, “There you go, now give me your wrist—here, pull back like this. And, aim. Shoot.”

Mac misses by a mile.

“Terrible,” says Frank. “You’re making him even worse than before!”

“Would you get out of here, Frank?”

“Yeah, fuck off, dude. Dennis is the best dart player in the gang.”

“No he’s not!” Frank yells, planting his feet on the floor. “I hit him right in the dead center of his hand when we play Chardee MacDennis!”

They shout at the same time, “Shut up!”

“Mac, go get the ace bandages,” Dennis says, patting him on the back. “We need to wrap your wrists, that’s where you’re going wrong.”

He disappears into the back office. Frank starts packing a bowl.

“Dennis, can you get me a beer?” he asks. “A nice cold beer really helps when you start coughing.”

“I’m not helping you get crossfaded at two in the afternoon, Frank,” he deadpans.

“But I need it to help me wash down this bong rip!”

“You are going to die very soon if you keep living your life like this, Frank,” Dennis says sagely. “Here, you can have the rest of mine.”

He leaves his beer on the table and joins Charlie at the bar, who’s chatting with Dee and sharing a bag of chips. Dennis steals a few and settles in next to them, grabbing a new IPA. He’s arguing happily with the others when he hears a dull, repeated thudding behind him.

“Hey Mac, don’t get started without—” he starts as he looks over his shoulder, but he stops when he sees it’s just Frank, teetering on his feet and throwing bullseyes. “Frank, where’s Mac?”

“How the hell should I know?” Frank says, turning around with a shrug. “I ain’t his keeper. He’s still in the back.”

“Still?” Dennis scoots back his stool. “How long does it take to find a goddamn ace bandage?”

“Where are you going?” Charlie asks.

“He can find the first aid kit himself, Dennis, sit down,” Dee agrees. “I need you to back me up here—”

“Yeah, sure,” says Dennis. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

Charlie and Dee call after him when he gets up, but he ignores them both.

“Mac, what’s taking so goddamn long?” he asks as he pulls open the door. “How hard can it be to get one box out from underneath the—Oh, gross, why is the floor sticky? Woah, you look pissed.”

Mac’s not searching for the first aid kit like he’s expecting; he’s just sitting hunched over the computer, squinting at the screen. Dennis shuts the door.

“Are you okay, dude?”

“What the fuck is this?” Mac’s voice is low and dangerous. It’s so far from what he was expecting that Dennis folds his back against the door.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” says Dennis.

He steps closer but he doesn’t even reach the desk before Mac's hand whips out to grab something off the printer and shoves it in his face. Dennis rears back, blinking hard to get it into focus.

He realizes what Mac’s waving at him.

“Oh,” he says.

“Oh.” Mac’s voice is hard. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say?” he asks. The accusation in Mac’s voice pricks at him like a hot iron; he can feel it burning away pieces of his shirt and digging into his chest.

“How about you start by explaining to me what the fuck you think you’re doing?” Mac says sharply. He slaps the ticket down on the desk, fingers splaying. “Why did you buy a one-way plane ticket to North Dakota? _This morning_?”

Dennis sucks in a breath through his teeth. He steps back, running a hand through his hair.

“If I’m being honest, I didn’t think you would find it so quickly,” he admits.

“Dennis,” he says. Dennis wants to take it seriously but it’s difficult when his voice gets whiny like that, and his chest still hurts but he can’t help himself chuckling. Wrong move—Mac’s expression hardens. “This isn’t fucking funny. And I found _this_ —”

He turns the computer monitor around so hard that two things balancing behind it fall off the desk. Their ceramic mug they use to keep pens breaks on the floor. Dennis bends down toward the screen and sees a Craigslist ad—not just the ad, but Mac clicks through to the ensuing emails from prospective would-be baby mamas and looks up at Dennis with a bold, hurt and terrified expression. The fire poker on his chest shoves deeper, breaking skin.

“Well...well, what were you doing looking through my emails?” he stutters, casting around for anything, any viable excuse to turn this around on Mac. “Why the fuck are you—”

“Don’t fucking blame me, Dennis,” he says, slamming his hands on the desk again so he can push himself to his feet. “Shit!”

He sweeps his arm over the desk and all the stacks of paper, scattered pens and the entire keyboard hits the floor. Dennis works to find his sneer.

“Right now, Dennis?” he asks, voice loaded. “Right after yesterday?”

Dennis’s throat is sticking. Fuck, how does Mac get his eyes like that? It’s hard to look at them. He can’t. He looks away.

“You were invading my privacy,” he says at last, “like you _always_ are, you fucking—”

“No! No!” Mac comes around the desk, and Dennis curls away from him. Still magnets, then. “You were trying to pay a woman off to lie to us and—and run—”

“Mac, shut up!” He leans in. “God, do you think I wanted this? But you don’t understand. You _never_ understand!”

“Then fucking talk to me, Dennis!”

“ _What_?” Dennis actually laughs, hand jumping to his heart. Mac scowls.

“You—”

The ground beneath them rumbles. They look at each other, and Dennis’s hand jumps to Mac’s arm instinctively.

“Fuck, now?” Dennis mutters. He doesn’t need an earthquake right now. If he can’t turn around, leave the bar and drive home in the next five minutes, he’s going to scream.

“Shit,” Mac says. Something clicks in his head. “Wait, _shit_. Can you grab—Hold down the computer, dude, we can’t lose all our fucking files again—”

Dennis lurches for the monitor just as the floor shakes again, much more intensely than before. He trips, slams his head on the edge of the desk, and then feels arms wrap around his waist and he goes spinning instead. He and Mac hit the floor on their sides, and he’s aching all over; his split forehead took another beating when it cracked against the hardwood. The ground’s still shaking, making him feel like he’s lying against a bus window but five times as painful, and Dennis curls in on himself. The movement pushes himself back into Mac’s chest. He’s shuddering—so much so that it takes him awhile to realize that the ground isn’t shaking anymore, it’s just him. Mac’s arms are warm and at the moment feel like a much-needed tourniquet. Even his insides ache, but maybe it’s the head wound.

He’s cursing, trying to take stock of what hurts and how much, but Mac seems to have gotten the brunt of it. He notices when he stops grunting long enough to raise his head. Mac lets go of his waist and sits up, clutching his face. His nose is bloody.

“Fuck,” Mac says thickly. “I think I broke my face.”

“Yeah...Oh, gross.” Dennis ran his hand through his hair and it came away sticky. He shows it to Mac. “Mac, you got your nose blood on the back of my head. You dick.”

“Sorry,” he says. “Shit, Dennis, that really hurt.”

“I know.” He pats Mac on the shoulder as he climbs to his feet. “I know, let’s get the first aid kit. That’s what we came back for anyway, right?”

Mac mumbles something that sounds like a yes. Dennis digs the box out and helps Mac up so he can sit on the desk. With slow, careful movements he cleans the blood from Mac’s face and pronounces his nose bruised but fine. Mac groans the entire time. Once his vision’s less clouded, Dennis hands him a couple of Tylenol and coaxes him into taking them dry.

“Thanks,” Mac mumbles.

“My turn,” he answers. He pulls Mac off the desk so that he can take his place.

Mac is, if possible, even gentler than Dennis was. He smooths a butterfly band-aid over his cut temple with one finger and uses the rag Dennis cleaned his face with to take care of the comparatively little amount of blood on his forehead. Dennis flinches, nose wrinkling at their blood mingling on the towel, but he lets Mac finish.

“Let’s go check on the others,” Dennis says as soon as he’s swallowed his pain pills too. “Make sure nothing important broke.”

He hops off the desk. Mac shuffles in, nearly pressing against his back.

“It sounds pretty quiet…”

Dennis goes out first, Mac trailing close behind.

“Shit, did it knock out the lights?” Mac says.

It _is_ darker out here, and there’s a few regulars that Dennis doesn’t remember seeing in a few years. Weird. Did they come in right before? He wasn’t in the back office very long.

“Where are the others?” Mac murmurs.

Dennis shakes his head, dispelling the strange appearance of old barflys from his mind and casting around for the gang.

“I don’t see…” he starts, and trails off when his eyes alight on the far side of the bar.

He’s seeing...he doesn’t know what he’s seeing. If he didn’t know any better...If it wasn’t completely insane…

He reaches over to tug on Mac’s sleeve, gaze flicking to his face to make sure that he really does still have Mac beside him. Mac’s real, Dennis is looking at him, he’s touching him. He knows this. But if he’s here, then why is…

“Holy shit, is that us?” Mac says.

They watch in stunned silence. On the other end of the bar, a Mac that hasn’t looked like Mac since he discovered the Shake Weight stands in a huge t-shirt that he’s absolutely swimming in, pouring tequila into a row of shot glasses lined up in front of a tiny-looking Dennis. Dennis’s younger counterpart looks drunk, red-cheeked and swaying on his feet. He’s got a black tank top on that’s sticking to his chest. Did his arms ever really look that spindly? Well, at least he looks hot, very sexual. Lightly sweaty always _was_ a good look on him, like maybe he just crawled out of somebody’s bed. His hair hasn’t been curly like that in a while, though. Dennis reaches up to touch his own hair, instinctively smoothing it back down.

He realizes what he’s doing partway through the motion and freezes.

“Jesus,” says Dennis, his arm swinging back to his side. “How hard did we hit our heads?”

He forgets to lower his voice. Across the bar, young Mac and Dennis look up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck ddl, cherish tends bar and the tequila scene. direct all complaints to macfoundhispride for a convo with me about this like six months ago.
> 
> titled 'seize the day' because it sounded too on-the-nose to call it YOLO


	2. part-time lover and part-time friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on,” Mac coaxes, low, just for the two of them— _this_ version of the two of them. “Let’s at least go over.”
> 
> “What are you talking about?” Dennis whips around and glares. “We can’t go over there! Even if this isn’t some sort of wild hallucination that we’re feeding into...Look, even if we _did_ just...if we went...I mean, we could alter the entire future and God knows what will happen then. What if we erase ourselves? Haven’t you ever seen _one_ sci-fi movie?”
> 
> “Give me some fucking credit, Dennis, I know Terminator line for line,” Mac says, insulted. “I wanna talk to them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: they briefly discuss what happens with dennis after the tequila scene in the pilot  
> POV changes back and forth each chapter :)
> 
> i forgot to mention, updates on saturdays 💐

**2005**

“Holy shit,” the younger of the two Macs says.

“Holy shit,” Mac echoes.

Dennis’s baby-faced counterpart sways unsteadily. He’s so drunk he seems to struggle just to keep his eyes open. Still, his hand finds the younger Mac’s arm even blindly and squeezes, jumpy, as he stumbles a step back—it pulls his Mac with him, keeping him upright but it’s a close thing. On the other side of the room, older Mac flexes his bicep instinctively.

“What am I...what am I looking at now?” the drunker of the Dennises slurs. “Mac, did you spike my drink?”

The one he’s addressing opens his mouth but doesn’t answer, eyes fixed across the bar.

Mac glances at his Dennis beside him, but he’s just watching their younger selves with an inexplicable expression on his face. Mac touches his elbow.

“Come on,” he coaxes, low, just for the two of them— _this_ version of the two of them. “Let’s at least go over.”

“What are you talking about?” Dennis reanimates to whip around and glare. “We can’t go over there! Even if this isn’t some sort of wild hallucination that we’re feeding into...Look, even if we _did_ just...if we went...I mean, we could alter the entire future and God knows what will happen then. What if we erase ourselves? Haven’t you ever seen _one_ sci-fi movie?”

“Give me some fucking credit, Dennis, I know Terminator line for line,” Mac says, insulted. “I wanna talk to them.”

He abandons Dennis’s side, leaving him spluttering, and their other selves just watch him in silence as he comes closer. Mac licks his lips. He can feel Dennis start after him, though he stays a few feet back until Mac stops, and Dennis comes up next to him and clutches his sleeve.

“What...so. What?” sober Dennis asks. His fingers spasm on Mac’s arm.

“Jesus, Dennis,” the younger Mac says, his eyes flickering between them, “you got _old_.”

“We both did,” Dennis says sharply. Older Mac touches his wrist.

“Yeah, but—” Young Mac looks his older self up and down. “At least I got kind of jacked, bro. Nice.”

When he holds out his fist, Mac instinctively gives himself a fistbump. Dennis tugs on his sleeve to pull him back.

“Thanks,” says Mac. His eyes flick over the younger, unsteady Dennis. “Hey, is he okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah,” says his younger self, glancing at him. “Um, we were just working on a thing—”

“Wait.” Older Dennis’s eyes narrow as he looks around. “Is this—Did you—?”

He’s narrowing his eyes at Mac, now, older Mac; Mac’s hands twist together and he looks away.

“I didn’t know yet,” Mac complains, though it doesn’t make the sharp prick of his glare burn any less. “I was just—I mean, Dee thought...it would make the scheme go away. And that was before I…”

His younger self’s eyes dart to him, slits.

“Before you what?” he asks. Mac flinches; is that what he sounds like, half-nervous and on the verge of an outburst? Christ, he’s being so transparent. No wonder Dennis can tell when he lies. “Don’t tell me I did all this and it doesn’t even work?”

Dennis crosses his arms and joins young Mac in glaring at his older self. Mac swallows, gaze darting away from them both.

“I’m...I just, uh...You know what, this shit isn’t important right now!” he says wildly. “We need to figure out what’s going on!”

“If this is just some kind of freaky head wound-related breakdown,” says Dennis, “then—”

“Look at us, Dennis!” older Mac says, somewhat hysterical. “I am high-fiving my younger self!”

When he reaches up, young Mac meets him mid-air. Dennis swipes at their hands furiously.

“Stop it! Stop it,” he says, low and vicious, but before he can say anything else his own counterpart opens his mouth.

“Mac, I really think I took something,” he says. “I need to go home...Do you...do you have my car keys?”

“You didn’t take anything. Except eight to ten shots of tequila. Let me drive you,” he says with a familiar quirk in his eye, but at the same time the older two shout: “No!”

“No, um...you don’t want to do that,” Mac says quickly. He remembers exactly what happens next if he gets Dennis’s keys: he’ll throw them in the desk in the office and pretend like he lost them, tell Dennis to wait at the bar while he gets the spares, leave him so Dee’s actor friends can come and do...Wait, they never showed up, did they? He still doesn’t really know what happened after he left Dennis drunk and alone, but he knows it made Dennis tense and unhappy when he asked so he never brought it up again. Mac got what he wanted, anyway—what he thought he wanted. Right now, Dennis is still and silent.

“Why?” younger Mac asks. “What happens?”

“We shouldn’t even be talking about this!” Dennis snaps.

Young Dennis sways again on his feet. Mac sighs in frustration, and his younger self just watches as he rounds the bar and puts his hands on the drunker Dennis’s shoulders. He stumbles, trying to look at Mac but his eyes keep falling shut.

“Woah,” he says. His hands find Mac’s face and he shudders, eyes closing, cheeks heating red. Young Dennis strokes his stubble, looking slightly more awake. “You look so _weird_ , Mac.”

Mac rolls his eyes. Chagrin settles over him as quickly as he submitted to the feel of Dennis’s hands, and he’s both cowed and frustrated. He should have known. Why does he always fall for it, as though one of these times it’s going to be any different?

“I know,” he says; he’s heard that before. “Come on.”

He slips his arm around Dennis’s back and Dennis winds one over his shoulders, and Mac helps him onto one of the barstools. He wipes Dennis’s sweaty forehead with one sleeve, and Dennis’s eyes lose focus as he watches it happen.

“Woah,” he says again. His voice is lower now, almost a reverent murmur. When his fingers wrap around Mac’s bicep, he jumps, and Dennis’s eyes slide back up to his. “Nice bis, man. Have you been working out?”

“Jesus, you’re wasted,” Mac mutters. He’s heard that one before, too. “I’m gonna get you something to drink, bro.”

“No more tequila.” Dennis’s body sways toward Mac when he releases him.

“No more tequila,” Mac promises. He hesitates, fighting the urge to sweep some of the hair off his forehead, but at the last moment clenches his fist and turns away instead.

The other two are talking, low and angry-sounding, at the other end of the bar. Mac glances at them while he pours a glass of water and scoops peanuts out from the holder. He puts them both down on napkins by the younger, drunken Dennis who swivels in his seat and clutches at Mac’s shirt.

“Thanks,” he slurs, leaning close.

Mac’s hands close around Dennis’s wrists, trying to pull away from him. God, he can’t stop being exactly who he is, can he? Not for one second. He forgot how much Dennis liked to tease him, promise him everything and then not follow through. Mac sighs.

“Mac,” the older one calls from down the bar. His voice is tense and commanding. “We need to get out of here, _now_.”

“I’m trying to make sure you don’t die,” Mac snaps back. The Dennis in front of him is clutching at his shirt, just keeping him there dragged down to his level. “You could at least come help yourself out.”

The other Dennis fidgets for a second, eyes darting away.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says at last. “What happened, happened. It’s already over, it’s done. We need to _go_. Every second we spend here, we’re just fucking up the future more and more!”

“Well clearly this little asshole isn’t going to do anything!” Mac shouts, flinging an arm out to gesture at his copy. “Do you want to ‘experiment’ some more, Dennis? Or what if you trip and hit your head this time? Someone’s gotta stick around and make sure he’s safe!”

“Jesus Christ,” Dennis says, rolling his eyes heavenward. “Alright then, fine, you fucking—stay here and live in the past like usual, Mac. You, come with me.”

He grabs the younger Mac’s arm and starts to yank on him. He jerks away.

“No way!”

“Mac, get in the backroom right now!” Dennis says. “We don’t have _time_ for this, we need to at _least_ make sure people don’t see all four of us together.”

“And you don’t think they’ll notice that I’ve been replaced by some, like, forty year old pathetic asshole lookalike?” Mac laughs.

“Shut up!” the older two shout at the same time.

“You stupid twink,” Mac says, “Would you get out of here?”

His younger self’s eyes narrow. “Don’t you _ever_ call me a—”

“For the love of _God_ ,” Dennis shouts. “Please. _Please_. Mac, if I give you twenty bucks, will you just come with me into the office so we can work this out?”

His younger self crosses his arms, looking between the other three. Cheeks puffy, eyes narrowed. God, did he really used to be such a punk-ass kid?

“Fine,” he says eventually. “But for the record, I think this is really stupid, Dennis. Let’s go to the bathroom, I have to take a piss.”

“Fine, whatever,” Dennis agrees, throwing his hands in the air. “Whatever will get you out of this fucking room. Mac—” He shuts his eyes, breathes. “ _Other_ Mac, would you please make sure the two of you join us as soon as I’m... _he’s_ not in danger of puking his guts out?”

He nods. Muttering obscenities, the older Dennis grabs younger Mac’s arm and drags him away toward the men’s room. Mac looks after them until the door closes; then, with a deep breath, he turns back to the drunk, tiny mess of his best friend sitting in front of him, whose head is lolling on his shoulder. He looks dangerously close to passing out.

“Oh come on, come on, dude,” Mac mutters, cradling his cheeks to lift his face up. Dennis blinks awake again. “Don’t fall asleep on me, okay?”

“Can you make me some coffee?” Dennis says. His voice is so quiet, gentle; Mac’s heart leaps and thumps.

“Sure,” Mac says. He gathers Dennis’s hands off his arm and squeezes before setting them gently on his lap. “Sure, just...sit tight, okay?”

“Okay.”

By the time the coffee is done, Dennis has finished the peanuts and water and is sitting with his chin propped on his forearms on the bar, his eyes still mercifully open. Mac touches his back as he sits down in the next barstool with an encouraging smile.

“Here you go,” he says, setting the mug down on the bar. Dennis clutches it swiftly, pulling it closer. He always has such cold hands. “How are you feeling?”

“M’tired,” he says, and indeed he cracks into a yawn partway through his sentence. He blinks at Mac once it’s done, looking a little bit more clear-eyed and present. “So you’re really from the future?”

Mac gives a helpless laugh. What a ridiculous question.

“Yeah.”

“Damn.” He sits up so he can drink his coffee easier, eying Mac from the side. “So I never get to get away from you, huh?”

Mac huffs, shaking his head.

“Nah,” he says. “I tried, but you wouldn’t let go of me.”

Dennis smiles into his coffee. Mac watches him for a second with his chest slowly warming. He watches Dennis for a minute, how his posture straightens and he looks more awake with every sip.

“Wait,” says Mac, sitting up suddenly. “They’ve been in the bathroom for kind of awhile. Do you think they’re okay?”

“What?” Dennis looks over, blinking at him. “Well yeah, that’s what he...that’s what I...what my, um, my older self said to do. God, that’s weird to say...but uh. Yeah, he told you he’d wait in there and that we should head in when we’re ready.”

“No...No, something’s wrong,” says Mac. He stands up. “Dennis wouldn’t have liked it if I made him wait this long, he should have come out already.”

Dennis blinks at him. “Mac, I’m sure it’s f—”

“I’m gonna go check on them,” Mac says. Dennis throws his hands in the air, eyes rolling. Mac pats him hastily on the shoulder as he goes.

The bathroom’s empty. Mac checks under every stall, checks the women’s room, checks every inch of the men’s room again. But his younger self and his Dennis are nowhere to be found.

Mac’s head is buzzing, heart pounding when he comes back outside to the bar. He tugs on Dennis’s sleeve, leaning his mouth close to his ear, mindful enough to be quiet as he was asked.

“They’re not in there, Dennis.”

“What?”

“I said they’re not in there!” Mac says. “You didn’t see them come out and leave or something, did you?”

“No, man. Nobody’s left the bathroom except for you.”

“Shit!” Mac kicked at the bar, but it only hurt his foot and made things worse. “Fuck. Okay, I’m gonna see if maybe they’re in the back office.”

“But I already told you, nobody left the bathroom!”

Mac checks anyway. Dennis is right though, as usual; they aren’t in the back office, or hiding in the bar, or out in the alley or in either bathroom (he checks both of them again, twice). Mac comes back out running his hands through his hair over and over and over.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Shit—Oh, Dennis. Come on. I don’t need this right now.”

While Mac was busting his ass looking for their friends—for themselves—Dennis’s willpower finally lost its fight against tequila: He’s fast asleep on the bar, his head pillowed on his arms, coffee cup half-empty and still warm. Mac sighs and goes over to him, shaking his shoulder.

“Dennis,” he says gently. “Hey Dennis, wake up, okay? Dennis.”

“Hm?” He raises his head abruptly, like he always does when spooked awake. He blinks exhaustedly, gaze unfocusing already. His cheek’s already making a beeline back toward his arms. “Shut up, Mac, I wanna go to sleep.”

Mac sighs. He’s tired too, really tired; he can feel it manifesting all along his shoulders, making them ache. He wants to stroke Dennis’s hair. He wants to curl up in the back office and let this all sort itself out without him.

“I know,” he says. “Me too. But we should really find—”

Dennis blinks up at him and it’s unbearable, really—the tilt of his head, how he bats his eyes, the pout of his slick, pink lower lip. Mac’s breath catches and the end of his protest gets lost.

“I wanna go home, Mac,” Dennis says quietly. He touches Mac’s arm, thumb running back and forth in the inside of his elbow. He breathes out, long and low, and Mac’s so close that he can hear when he does.

He puts his hand over Dennis’s.

“Okay,” he says, “okay. We’ll…” He licks his lips. “We’ll go home for tonight. B-but...Maybe they went there, you know?”

“Yeah. They might’ve,” Dennis says, nodding.

“Okay...okay.” Breathing in, he feels a little bit of energy and courage course through him. “Alright, let me just close down the bar.”

When he’s done, he heaves Dennis out of the barstool with very little help from him; Dennis is still pretty wasted, feet so unsteady that Mac keeps a hand on his arm to make sure he stays upright all the way to the car. Mac leans over him, faces close; he can’t breathe the entire time he’s doing up Dennis’s seatbelt for him. Dennis’s hand touches his wrist as he pulls out of the car—Mac’s eyes jump to his, but Dennis doesn’t say anything. He breathes out. Mac shuts his door.

“You know,” he says as he climbs into the driver’s seat and clicks his own seatbelt, “I forgot how tiny you used to be, Den.”

Dennis’s head lolls toward him. On the steering wheel, Mac’s hands flex; he’s not used to being on this side of the car, it’s been so long since Dennis let him drive. That’s how he knows Dennis is drunk, that and the slow way he blinks at him.

“Shut up,” Dennis says with a snort. He elbows Mac over the center console. “M’not tiny.”

“Yeah, you are. You really are.” Mac twists the key in, smiling. “‘Specially next to me.”

“Yeah, maybe _now_ ,” says Dennis. He grabs Mac’s arm and shakes it, making him jolt; he nearly rams the car in front as he’s pulling out.

Mac shoots him a smile. “Don’t worry, Den, it’s cute. Cuter than most twinks, anyway.”

Dennis laughs.

“Shut up,” he says, punching his bicep now.

“It’s true!” Mac says. “Hey, you cold?”

Dennis is shivering, though it’s probably all the alcohol. Mac flicks on the heater despite Dennis’s protests to the contrary and wrestles his sweatshirt off as soon as they get to a red light.

“Here, put this on ‘til you warm up.”

“I don’t need it,” says Dennis. He crosses his arms. “I’m not cold.”

“Dennis.” He shoots him a look.

Dennis just smooths the sweatshirt out over his lap and ignores him. Mac sighs, wheedling at him for a few more streets, but Dennis glowers and snipes back until he lets it go. He brakes for a stop sign, running a hand through his hair.

“God,” Mac says. “You’re fucking annoying.”

Dennis is leaning back with his eyes closed, a smile sitting pretty on his lips. Mac shakes his head and flips the radio on.

He’s jamming to Springsteen, so he misses the rustling; but they’re halfway home when Dennis asks, “Where are you going?”

Mac looks over and sees that Dennis has the sweatshirt on, zipped up. He’s leaning his cheek against the window. Mac watches him as long as he feels safe to, and his chest feels warm.

“What? Oh, shit, I totally forgot.”

He’s so used to going back to Dee’s after a long night that it didn’t even occur to him that the old place is still standing. He pulls into one of their favorite gas stations to make a U-turn.

“How can you forget where we live, dude?” Dennis laughs. “Did we move? This is the way to Dee’s place.”

Mac shoots him an uneasy smile. Dennis is still chuckling to himself as he leans his head back against the glass, eyes on the night sky.

“Such a punk,” he mutters.

“Hm?”

“I said you’re real mouthy for such a pretty boy,” Mac tells him louder. “No upper arm strength, thinks he can talk back to me.”

Dennis laughs.

“Shut up, Mac. I could hit the gym that much too if I never got laid and skipped half my shifts.”

Dennis doesn’t help him out at all once they park outside the apartment, just watches Mac with this bright, smug smile on his face while Mac opens his door and undoes his seatbelt for him. The journey seems to have at least woken him up a bit, as he only stumbles into the wall once on the way up the stairs.

Mac stands back and lets Dennis get the door. He throws a curious look over his shoulder while he does it, saying, “What, you don’t have your keys on you?” and Mac looks down at the floor.

He thought he’d be happy seeing the old place for the first time in two years, when he more clearly remembers it gutted by fire, but he just feels weird and a little bit strange, like he doesn’t quite belong here anymore. Still, it’s not as bad as it could be: Last fall they finally pooled enough money to get contractors to fix their apartment, and on Christmas Mac won a bet about which one of them could bang the most attractive person while wearing a Santa costume. The gang unanimously declared Mac the winner, and he got to redecorate. (He did cheat a little. Who knew Craigslist had such an array of guys into Christmas-themed bondage?)

Regardless, before all this he was doing up their place exactly as it used to be. Such a nice surprise for Dennis, he figured: He always likes things to stay exactly as they are.

Even still, the apartment he’s standing in now isn’t familiar. They’ve changed too much. The chair in the corner collapsed in 2011, the knick knacks on the shelf broke and got replaced and broke again. Little things, but enough that Mac doesn’t feel exactly at home. Like if someone broke in and moved everything a few inches to the left.

Dennis doesn’t blink or notice Mac’s discomfort, tossing his keys on the counter and kicking off his shoes. He totters into the kitchen for a glass of water, which gives Mac a second to take everything in in peace. Breathe.

“They’re not here,” says Mac, wringing his hands. He peers into both their bedrooms, just in case, but the whole place is dark. “Fuck. Why aren’t they here?”

“They probably went back to 2020 or wherever it was you said you’re from,” Dennis says carelessly. He throws himself onto the couch. “Whatever dude, we’ll deal with it tomorrow. Can’t do shit today.”

“Seriously?” Mac demands. “Don’t you even _care_ that I’m gone?”

Dennis looks him up and down as he grabs the remote.

“You’re right here, dude.”

“You know what I mean,” he says flatly. Dennis grins. “Shut up.”

Mac’s scowling. Dennis looks at him for a long minute, at his unflinching need to take care of this (Dennis would probably call it obstinance), and he sighs.

“Look,” he says more seriously. “They’re not at the bar, and they’re not here. We can’t do anything about it tonight, it’s late as shit now. Let’s just...watch a movie or something, you know? That’s all we can do. Let’s just try and get ourselves nice and relaxed so we can be sharp, and handle this tomorrow.”

He’d be more convincing if he wasn’t slurring his words.

“You should go to bed,” Mac sighs, just watching him.

Dennis gives him a look and changes the channel again.

“The fuck are you talking about, dude?” he says. “It’s only, like, three a.m.”

Despite the situation, Mac chuckles. He remembers when they used to stay up like that; sleep in all day so they could party all night. By now, on a normal day, he and Dennis would have taken tea hours ago and gone straight to bed. Well, he can play at being young for a night.

“I remember having energy like that,” Mac says. He throws himself down next to him, patting his leg. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Dennis snorts. “Speak for yourself. I’m gonna be vital forever, bro. If you start eating right and doing my workout routines with me, you could be too.”

“I’d know better than you,” Mac says.

Dennis shifts around, grumbling; it brings him a little closer to Mac, and Mac lets the proximity wash over him warm and heady.

They watch Bridget Jones’s Diary. Dennis must be in one of his phases where he’s binging romcoms with Charlie because he’s into it, mouthing along with some of the more iconic lines and arguing with the TV when Bridget does something he doesn’t like. Mac grins; it’s annoying but he just lets him do it.

Dennis gravitates closer as the movie goes on, and even lets Mac put his arm on the couch behind his back. They haven’t had a movie night this relaxed in a very long time, but then—Dennis is drunk, and he doesn’t hate Mac yet. Not yet. So maybe it’s not so surprising when he leans his head on Mac’s shoulder and Mac realizes he’s fallen asleep.

Slowly, so slowly he feels like it takes him an eternity to reach it, Mac drapes his arm around Dennis’s shoulders. Dennis makes a small sound and shuffles closer in his sleep. His mouth is open, smeared against Mac’s arm. It’s gross but Mac doesn’t want to jostle him, even just to tilt Dennis’s head a little so he’s drooling on himself. Dennis sniffs in his sleep, hand falling loose and curled onto Mac’s thigh. Mac feels so frozen that he’s afraid to even breathe.

Bridget Jones only has ten more minutes left, so Mac lets the movie play out. As the credits start, Mac gently plucks his wrist from his leg. Little by little he shifts Dennis off of him, afraid with every movement that he’s going to wake up, but then Mac successfully detaches himself and begins cleaning up a little out of habit to give Dennis a few more minutes’ rest. There’s a few beer cans crushed on the rug that he clears away, he refills Dennis’s water and sets it on his bedside table along with a couple of painkillers. He’s seen Dennis this drunk before, he’s going to be in a hell of a mood when he wakes up tomorrow morning. He should get him to drink the water and go to bed.

When he goes back out to the living room, though, he just stands for a minute and watches Dennis sleeping. He looks peaceful and _young_ , God—so fucking young, curled up on their couch and skinny and not at all filled out yet like he will be someday, fewer rough edges, more carelessless and hair. Such a mop of hair, no product and just foundation for his makeup. Mac can’t believe he let himself go out like that. Mac doesn’t want to wake him.

With a sigh, he bends down and slides one arm beneath Dennis’s bent legs, cradling Dennis’s head with the other. It’s difficult, but not as difficult as it would be now; this Dennis is lighter, as though his very bones weigh less. Mac hefts him into his arms with minimal effort.

Miraculously, Dennis doesn’t wake; he folds his arms around Mac’s neck in his sleep, nuzzling closer to his throat. He blinks awake, clearly only half-conscious, when Mac settles him onto the bed.

“Did you carry me?” he asks muzzily. He turns over, snuggling his pillow instead. “Super weird, man.”

Mac draws the covers up for him and pats his hair, fingers tightening on the curls. Dennis makes a small sound of protest, pressing his face to the bed. Mac snorts.

“Just get some sleep, dick.”

Dennis is smiling when Mac shuts the door.


	3. if you wanted honesty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: mac and dennis argue about what happens after the tequila scene in the pilot

**2005**

“We shouldn’t even be talking about this!” Dennis snaps.

Young Dennis sways again on his feet. Mac sighs, sounding frustrated, and his younger self just watches as he rounds the bar and puts his hands on the drunk Dennis’s shoulders. He stumbles, struggling to look at Mac while his eyes keep falling shut.

Dennis watches him coddle his smaller self with embarrassment flaring in his chest. God, did he really used to let Mac treat him this way? He can’t even watch, it makes his stomach crawl. Instead he turns on the other Mac with a scowl.

“I can’t believe you did that to me,” Dennis hisses. It doesn’t matter that it’s not his Mac that he’s saying it to—maybe this one’s better to yell at anyway? Since he’s closer to the situation?

“I had to,” Mac whisper-shouts, waving his finger at him, “you and Charlie were turning us into a gay bar!”

“So?!”

“This is an Irish pub, bro! We’re Catholics!”

“ _I’m_ not a Catholic!” 

Mac crosses his arms. “Well, you’re going to hell for that too.”

“Oh my God, dude,” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “I forgot how tired this fucking homophobia thing is, I swear to God. I—I can’t keep up with you!”

It’s harsh, but true; Dennis saw the way this Mac was just looking at him—at _younger_ him, as he put back all that tequila. He was interested in more than just the scheme, people didn’t look at him like _that_ unless they—

“What do you mean you _forgot_?” Mac asks, sounding much more serious.

Dennis opens his mouth and closes it again, stymied.

“I—you hadn’t yet...Mac,” he yells suddenly, at his own Mac down the bar. “We need to get out of here, _now_.”

“I’m trying to make sure _you_ don’t die,” the older Mac snaps back. “You could at least come help yourself out.”

Dennis recoils slightly at the thought. He’s got to admit, it’s almost too weird to even think about putting hands on himself. He can’t help thinking about if they’re stuck here forever. What if they can’t get home? Will the future stop happening until they get back or will the others just go on without them, never knowing what happened? _He_ doesn’t even know what happened. He couldn’t explain it to them if he had the chance.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dennis says finally. “What happened, happened. It’s already over, it’s done. We need to _go_. Every second we spend here, we’re just fucking up the future more and more.”

“Well clearly this little asshole isn’t going to do anything!” Mac shouts, gesturing wildly at his other self. “Do you want to ‘experiment’ some more, Dennis? Or what if you trip and hit your head this time? Someone’s gotta stick around and make sure he’s safe!”

“Jesus Christ.” He looks at the ceiling, praying for control. “Alright then, fine, you fucking—stay here and live in the past like usual, Mac. You, come with me.”

He starts towing the younger one toward the back room, but he jerks his arm away before Dennis can get him more than a couple of feet. It’s stupid, this little shithead doesn’t have half the muscle that he’ll end up with but he can still catch Dennis off guard like that. Dennis clenches his fists.

“No way!” the younger one’s saying.

“Mac, get in the backroom right now!” Dennis says. “We don’t have _time_ for this, we need to at least make sure people don’t see all four of us together.”

“And you don’t think they’ll notice that I’ve been replaced by some, like, forty year old pathetic asshole lookalike?” Mac laughs.

Same wavelength: He and his own Mac both shout, “Shut up!” at the same time.

“You stupid twink,” Mac adds. Well, not like Dennis wasn’t thinking it too but he _had_ to know that would only rile him up. Sure enough—behind him, he feels the other one bristle. “Would you get out of here?”

“Don’t you ever call me a—”

“For the love of God,” Dennis yells over them. “Please. Please. Mac, if I give you twenty bucks, will you just come with me into the office so we can work this out?”

Trademark fashion, the younger one’s crossing his arms before Dennis even finishes talking. He glances between the rest of them, and Dennis can see the telltale signs that he can’t decide if he wants to do what Dennis says or keep making a scene just to let out all his fear and frustration. It’s written all over his face. Dennis bites his lip, hoping.

“Fine,” he says at last, and Dennis’s whole body relaxes. “But for the record, I think this is really stupid, Dennis. Let’s go to the bathroom, I have to take a piss.”

“Fine, whatever.” Anything to get him away from where people could see. “Whatever will get you out of this fucking room. Mac—” He shuts his eyes, breathes. “Other Mac, would you please make sure the two of you join us as soon as I’m...as soon as he’s not in danger of puking his guts out?”

His Mac nods. Dennis grabs the younger one’s arm and drags him toward the men’s room.

“You are such a dick,” he hisses in his ear. “You’re too loud, you’re attention-seeking and it’s going to get us all…”

He trails off, looking for a likely scenario to end his brilliant insult. He can’t find one, and after a few seconds that feel much longer, heat blooms on his cheeks.

“Oh, what?” Mac spits. “What do you really think is going to happen, Dennis, we’ll get chased by Men in Black? Maybe Superman will come down?”

“I don’t know what would happen, but it’s probably nothing good!” Dennis whispers back furiously. “Have you ever seen _one_ sci-fi movie, Mac? Please, watch _one_. A single one and you’d know something so basic as—”

“Shut the hell up, Dennis, you know I know Terminator line for line.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Dennis, pinching the bridge of his nose. It doesn’t help. “Am I going to have to relive every headache you’ve ever given me? Is that just what’s happening to me now?”

He pushes Mac into the bathroom and slams the door after them.

“You know, I really do need to take a piss.”

“Use the stall.”

Dennis crosses his arms, looking away. It’s silent for a moment, and then, because he doesn’t know how to shut up:

“You know, this is actually pretty cool, Dennis,” Mac’s voice comes. He sounds much friendlier, bubblier; as though they weren’t just arguing. As though Dennis’s blood has had time to cool. “Do you think we could make some money off this?”

“What the—How the _hell_ could we make money out of this, Mac, what the hell are you talking about?” he asks. “No, don’t—don’t answer that. You are such an idiot.”

“Stop calling me that,” Mac says. It’s flat, but his voice perks right back up again when he rambles on, “This is cool! I got hot, don’t you think I got hot? I knew going to the gym was a good idea.”

“You started going to that gym because you had a boner for the guy who ran the smoothie bar.” He really did, told Dennis about it one time after he came out.

“No,” Mac lies happily. “It was because I knew I could stack on muscle like that. I should start gaining mass, don’t you think I should start gaining mass now?”

“ _Don’t_ you dare,” Dennis says sharply. He won’t let his younger self get insomnia about Mac’s health this early on. Give him a few more years’ peace.

“Whatever. Probably take a super long time anyway,” Mac says. He hears a zipper, then the toilet flushing. Mac comes out of the stall grinning. “Hey, so what am I like in the future? Did I get married to Danicka Patrick?”

“I—Do you really think that’s going to happen?” Dennis says, giving him a look that he hopes properly conveys how utterly insane Dennis thinks he is. “I don’t know if I should be telling you about the future, man. It could be dangerous.”

“You freak out too much,” Mac says easily, busying himself at the sink.

Dennis just blinks at him. “This is actually the perfect time to be freaking out about things, Mac.”

Mac just shoots him a grin in the mirror. He reaches for a paper towel.

“Do we still live together?” he asks, leaning back on the counter. He’s got this big smile on his face like this is a cool game, or like Dennis is just some fortune teller like the one Charlie made them all go see one time that lived above their fourth favorite coffee shop. Anything except a serious problem that could permanently ruin both their lives. And both their other selves’ lives too.

“Unfortunately,” Dennis says.

“Why would that be unfortunate? Hey, do I ever grow a mustache?”

“No,” says Dennis. “And don’t ever do that!”

“I just always thought it would make me look tougher.”

Dennis shakes his head. “Mac, you think you can be Hulk Hogan and you can’t. You just can’t.”

“I could too. Hey, what about you, huh?” he says suddenly, looking Dennis up and down. After the initial shock fades and he takes a few seconds to adjust, Dennis preens—against his better judgement. Not that it’s that shocking, coming from Mac, but...still. “You’re still gorgeous, Dennis. I mean, you’ve got some wrinkles—”

“I do not!” Horror overtakes his pleasure instantly, washing warm and embarrassed through his blood.

“No, you totally do. But don’t worry, Dennis,” he says, looking him over again, slower. “It only knocks you down a point or two.”

“I—Excuse me? You—” Dennis clears his throat. His voice is lower when he says, “You’ll change your mind, I promise.”

An uncomfortable look spasms over Mac’s face right before he leans away. Dennis barely registered them moving closer but now it smarts a little, the distance. Even though it’s only another foot.

The sting there is twofold: One, it’s incredible how easy it is to get back into this same routine. It’s infuriating. He’s older now, he’s supposed to know better than to rile Mac up. Isn’t that rule number one?

The other part: God, but he forgot how scared Mac used to be. No matter what Dennis promised—underlying other things, never saying exactly what he meant but always _meaning it_ , promising it, and he knew Mac could fucking hear it. That’s what hurt the most, he thinks; Mac could hear it all but he was way too scared to take what was right in front of him. Dennis swallows, looking away.

“I just—” he starts, but Mac moves suddenly toward him, arm starting to reach for him somehow, probably just to touch an elbow or shoulder but Dennis jerks away. Mac’s hurt expression is going to brand itself in his brain for at least a week, he just knows it. Dennis opens his mouth uselessly, eyes searching Mac’s face.

Too late. Mac is already recoiling, curling back against the sink. Dennis breathes, “Don’t touch me,” like his volume can soften the blow.

Mac’s eyes flick over him, wide and injured. He opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“Dennis,” he says. Dennis’s chest constricts; he feels like he’s going to choke. “What...Are we okay?”

Dennis glances at his face and away.

“We’re fine,” he says stiffly. He shudders, then squares his shoulders to stand a little taller. “You didn’t...It’s fine.”

“No,” Mac insists. “Do we...Are we _still_ okay?”

Dennis flinches. Expression hardening, he crosses his arms and says again, rougher, “We’re fine.”

“But—”

“I said we’re fine!”

“Relax, dude,” Mac says, and it comes out sharper—the relentless knot in Dennis’s chest unwinds by a thread. He softens his voice when he says, “Dennis, I just want—”

He reaches forward again, slower. Dennis has time to see it coming, to prepare himself.

He still pulls away when Mac’s hand gets close, shoulder jerking back. When he draws one foot further away too, he puts it down—it lands on something slimy, the consistency of the yuck puddle and twice as sticky against his shoe. As he pulls it up, he slips—Mac grabs for him almost in the same second, reflexes so fast it’s like he’s the one whose feet are coming out from under him, and as soon as his hand closes around Dennis’s wrist, Dennis grabs his arm back.

His momentum yanks them both off-balance and Dennis hits the ground hard for the second time in an hour. This time nothing stops him from cracking his head except for his own shoulder; he’s pretty sure he blacks out from the pain for a split second, everything going fuzzy until he can roll over onto his back. Fuck, that already doesn’t feel good and he really doesn’t want to know how bad it’ll hurt once the shock wears off.

His left temple is pounding like his headache has manifested physically, beating him until he’s bruised. He rolls his shoulder and immediately wishes he hadn’t; a low moan escapes him, and he collapses back against their disgusting bathroom floor.

“Oh my god,” he groans. His head may not have borne the brunt of the fall but it sure as hell doesn’t feel _fine_ after bouncing off the floor, just because it didn’t hit first.

“Shit,” he hears next to him; it takes a long minute of Mac cursing beside him before Dennis has the wherewithal to look sideways. Mac’s nose is bleeding and he’s clutching at it, moaning pathetically.

“Fuck,” says Dennis. He pushes himself up with his good arm, smacking at Mac’s side. The effort involved nearly makes him collapse again. “Get up. Mac, get up.”

“I can’t,” he moans. “I think I just died.”

Dennis rolls his eyes. Giving Mac shit is already making him feel a little better, his many aches dulling.

“You didn’t die, shit for brains, you just hit your head a little. Grow up.”

“I mean it,” says Mac. “I can’t see. I think I’ve gone blind, dude!”

“Mac. Mac!” Dennis smacks him in the side; it jostles his injured shoulder and he clutches at it, groaning. “Shit. You’re not blind, you just have your eyes closed! Goddamn it.”

He blinks at the ceiling. “Oh,” he says, and sits up.

“Drama queen,” Dennis mutters. “Wait…”

Mac sits up beside him, tipping his head back to stem the flow. He pinches inexpertly at the bridge of his nose; rolling his eyes, Dennis readjusts his grip for him. He ignores Mac’s muttered, “Thanks.”

Dennis goes back to staring at the wall.

“What?” Mac nudges him with one elbow. “What, dude?”

Dennis’s eyes are transfixed on some graffiti above the urinals. _Zipper_. A messy signature. The THIS IS YOUR RESTROOM: WASH YOUR HANDS sign on the wall is gone.

“Wait…No.” Dennis scrambles to his feet. “No!”

He can hear Mac calling after him, close on his heels, but Dennis lurches for the door.

“Dennis!”

He stops short right outside of the bathroom. Mac runs into his back so hard that they both stumble. Over at the bar, Dee and Charlie—still sharing a bag of chips—look up.

“Shit,” he breathes. Dee’s gaze is unwavering on his.

“How’d you guys get in the bathroom?” Charlie asks. “Weren’t you in—”

As he gestures toward the back office, Dennis feels both Mac’s hands land on either side of his ribs. His head pokes out over his shoulder.

“Woah,” he says.

Dennis is still looking at them, so he sees it—the exact moment that his sister and best friend register Mac’s face, round and bright-eyed and twenty-eight years old.

Charlie scrambles up from his barstool. Dee seems to be frozen in shock, her beer halfway to her mouth.

“What the fuck?” Charlie says—eloquently for once, Dennis thinks.

“I…” Dennis steps out from under Mac’s hands. They’re burning a hole in the sides of his shirt, he can’t take it. “I...He’s...yeah.”

“Charlie,” Dee says in a high, unnerving voice.

She stops. Dennis wonders what his eyes look like, because if he has to guess he bets that they’re nearly as big as Dee’s.

“Are _you_ seeing Dennis standing next to Mac from, like, fifteen years ago?” Charlie asks her. “Or should I stop sniffing glue before work?”

“Stop sniffing glue before work _anyway_ ,” Dennis says sharply.

“No, I’m...I’m seeing it too,” Dee assures him at the same time.

Beside him, Mac waves vaguely.

“Uh...Hey guys,” he says. “Charlie, you look the same. Dee...um, you look...uglier than ever.”

Dennis snickers. He catches sight of Dee’s expression and, for once, turns it into a pretend cough.

“Um...Um, Dennis?” Dee calls. Her voice is too high. “You look pretty, um, banged up over there. Do you need some Tylenol?”

Dennis nods swiftly.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Yep. Let’s get some...Tylenol.”

He only realizes that he’s half-shielding Mac’s body with his own once he moves away and feels like he’s leaving the both of them over-exposed. It hurts to part with him, too. Like he’s throwing Mac to the wolves somehow, even though it’s both of them neck deep in it; he can feel Mac cross the room even as he follows Dee, without looking at him.

Dee takes it about as well as expected: Denial, anger, sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. By the time they go back out to the others, he almost wishes he were Mac and only had to break the news to Charlie. Annoying, sure, but he thinks that he’d take Charlie’s convoluted, absurd sci-fi questions over Dee’s insistence that the other Mac, _their_ Mac, is going to erase them all from this timeline and there’s nothing they can even do about it. Does he trust his younger self to reel Mac in? Probably not. It took decades to shape Mac into who he thought he wanted him to be; 2005 Dennis doesn’t have the job experience. Christ, they’re all going to perish.

“I _knew_ it,” Charlie’s shouting. “I _knew_ time portals were real!”

Dennis rolls his eyes. His immediate instinct is to tell Charlie that he’s being an idiot, but then he remembers that that’s exactly what’s happening here. He closes his mouth. On his right, he sees Dee shooting him a little smirk.

Mac wanders away as Dennis leans over the counter, accepting the beer Charlie hands him and listening to him rhapsodize about all the different time portals he’s seen in his life.

“And you never figured out how to get through any of those, did you?” Dee asks in mock surprise from where she’s wandered over to Charlie’s side behind the bar and cracked open a beer of her own. “Weird.”

She’s got that shithead smile back on her face, the one she always wears right before she—slides her eyes over to Dennis, right on cue. He smirks back.

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “Too bad, ‘cause then I could help—”

He waves toward Mac, who’s now reading the signs behind the pool table with a furrowed brow. Dennis glances back at him too.

“Shit,” he sighs, hanging his head. “We need to regroup.”

“Your group is toast,” Charlie says.

Dennis levels him a glare, but there’s not much heat behind it. He gives up after a moment—it’s more exhausting than effective—and glances again at Mac.

“I guess we should head home,” he concedes.

“Are you serious? This is crazy,” Dee says. “You can’t leave now. We need to learn everything that we can about this! Charlie, can you go kick the router again? I haven’t been able to get service all goddamn day—”

“I don’t want anyone coming in and seeing a 28 year old Mac standing in the fucking bar!” Dennis hisses, throwing his arm in Mac’s direction blindly. “What exactly do you plan on telling people, Dee?”

She blinks at him, pulled up short.

“I...I don’t know.”

“Right. Exactly. Which is why we need to get him home.” He twists around. “Mac!”

Mac looks up from reading the stickers on the support beam. “Yeah?”

“We gotta go, dude, we gotta get home,” says Dennis, getting up from the bar. “Come on, let’s go.”

Mac bites his lip. “Oh, but—I kinda want to stay and hang out at the bar…”

Dennis steps closer. Mac looks at him, and he tries to think on his feet. What’s the fastest way to get Mac out of here without him causing a scene? Mac loves drawing attention. It’s one of his more theatrical, and headache-inducing, qualities.

“Um...Don’t you want to see the apartment?” Dennis asks.

He raises one eyebrow delicately. Mac’s lips part, and he takes a step forward. He looks back at Dee and Charlie and licks his lips.

“I…”

“We’ll be back tomorrow, dude,” Dennis promises, finally crossing the distance to him so he can guide Mac away with an arm around his shoulder. Mac relents as soon as Dennis touches him, leaning into his side. “Come on.”

“Okay, yeah,” Mac says. “I wanna see the place.”

Dennis puts his hands on Mac’s shoulders, guiding him through the door first so he can glance behind him. He trades a serious look with Dee. Mac hesitates, in danger of causing trouble, so Dennis shoves him toward the car and kicks the door shut behind them.

Mac presses his face to the window the whole drive there, except for the couple of times he reaches to change the music and they get into a slapfight. Dennis usually wins, although he has to endure ten long minutes of Muse first.

“Where you going, dude?” Mac asks a few streets past the turn toward their old place. “You missed the turn on 3rd.”

Dennis’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I know.”

“But why—”

“Mac, just...Stop talking.”

“But I want to go home.”

“We are,” Dennis says quietly, and takes a right onto their road.

Mac frowns, looking out the window again. He must know where they are. The last of the confusion melts from his face when Dennis pulls up to the curb.

“This is Dee’s building,” Mac says in a quieter voice. Dennis recognizes the faint traces of disgust in it. “Are we gonna move in with her?”

“Yeah...kind of.” Dennis unbuckles. “Come on, you’ll see.”

He doesn’t wait for Mac but can hear him following, all the way up to the apartment. Mac looks around the mere couple of rooms with the same interest he showed the bar, though he’s been inside Dee’s place countless times before. She moved in here around the same time he and Mac started renting theirs. Mac touches the back of the couch, the hammock, a few of the boxes with their stuff inside. He looks up at Dennis with parted lips and a big crease cutting through his forehead.

Dennis sighs and begins to tell him the story. It—hurts, like reliving the death of a loved one, but he keeps his voice carefully neutral and flat. Mac is stony-faced as Dennis describes the fire in Mac’s room, then the second one in his own—Dennis can imagine it, what he must be seeing, how he must be picturing the slow destruction of it. How the paint might have peeled off the wall and the carpet curled up at the corners. Most of their possessions crumbling to ash.

Mac ends up on the couch. Dennis perches nearby. For a while, they do nothing except watch TV in silence; Mac frees a few beers from the fridge for them to leave scattered on the coffee table. As he relaxes, Dennis drifts closer to him and settles himself nearby. They watch a few episodes of Empire—Mac is extremely intrigued and demands Dennis restart from the pilot—and get halfway through Die Hard when Mac gets up for another drink.

“What the hell,” he says; Dennis glances up to see him searching through the pantry. “Why is this thing half protein powder? Where are all of our snacks, dude?”

“You threw them out the month that you cut out salt and fats,” Dennis says. “And that’s just how much protein powder you buy. I swear, it’s like you’re stocking for the apocalypse.”

Mac wrinkles his nose. “I want cheeseballs.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re repulsive.”

Mac makes a face. He shuts the pantry and rifles through a few drawers instead.

“If you’re looking for takeout menus, they’re right here,” says Dennis, pulling open the drawer next to the couch.

Mac looks at him for a minute.

“Thanks,” he mutters.

He stomps over. When he pulls out his phone, Dennis glances up at the one he’s chosen.

“I want dumplings,” he murmurs, turning back to the movie.

“I know, Dennis,” says Mac, still sounding angry.

His phone’s out of service here, and Dennis is loathe to lend him his own; Mac’s bad at taking care of valuables, and besides, he doesn’t exactly trust him not to look through everything. Faced with either that or no dumplings, though, he reluctantly hands over his cell. Mac spends a good five minutes marveling at it and touching all the apps before Dennis threatens him enough that he clicks over to the keypad. 

Mac still isn’t happy, even after reaming out the girl on the takeout line for saying they’re actually running low on ingredients and can thus only fulfill three orders of lo mein instead of four. He announces that it’s “too fucking cold in here, I feel like I’m getting spitroasted by Santa Claus” and leaves Dennis to deal with that imagery while he starts digging through the boxes scattered around the couch.

“Santa Claus and who?” Dennis asks suddenly.

Mac looks up from the box that used to hold Dennis’s sex tapes. The sad remains of a few spools are still crushed at the bottom.

“What?”

“Santa Claus and who, Mac?” he says. “You need two people for a spitroast. You’re not making sense.”

“Then—I don’t know, Santa and Frozone, then!”

“ _What_? What made you think of that combination, Mac?”

“I don’t know! I’m mad!” He threw a jump rope back into a box with enough force to make Dennis startle when it clattered against something metal. “Goddamn it! I don’t know where my fucking jackets are in this place!”

Dennis could help, but Mac’s temper is pissing him off; he crosses his arms and lets Mac tornado uselessly around the apartment with some measure of satisfaction cooling his stomach. Dennis refocuses on Die Hard and he’s torn between thinking about Bruce Willis and wishing Mac would just sit down, to the point he isn’t paying attention to what Mac’s actually doing anymore. He doesn’t look up at all, at least not until he hears—

“Holy shit, what’s in here?”

He’s got his head stuck in the closet. Dennis blanks on it for a minute, then frowns; in all that’s happened, he forgot about what they stored in there. Was it really only two days ago?

When he remembers, he’s on his feet and at the closet door in a flash.

“Don’t touch that,” he bites out. He grabs Mac’s arm and yanks him out of there. Mac stares at him with huge eyes, and Dennis drops him like he’s been burned. He sighs. “I didn’t mean to—I just...Look. That’s precious cargo, okay? Can you just...leave it alone?”

“What is it?” Mac glances through the open door.

Dennis tries to lower his blood pressure with the breathing exercises he and Dee watched on Youtube. It’s not working.

“Can you—Can you do that for me, please?” he asks brusquely. “Just forget about this one little thing?”

Mac looks around.

“But…”

“Goddamn it!” Dennis shouts, suddenly enough to startle Mac back. “Can you really not leave this one fucking thing alone? It’s a gun, okay, are you happy?”

Mac’s eyes light up. He looks back at the crate nestled in the back of Dee’s closet, pupils visibly dilating. God.

“Don’t bust a nut over it,” Dennis commands sharply. “It was a gift. For me.”

Mac looks at him with his eyebrows creeping toward his fringe.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. A big one,” Dennis says stiffly. Is it really so hard to believe, that someone would care enough to get him something? A grand gesture? Grudgingly he adds, “You gave it to me for Valentine’s Day.”

He can’t look at Mac for a minute. When he finally does, he finds Mac’s face noticeably paler.

“What?” he says, lips barely moving. He reanimates, shaking his head wildly. He sounds like he’s gasping for breath when he says, “Why would I....Why would you say something like that? What—What would be the...That’s bullshit, that’s total bullshit!”

Dennis flinches. Is the idea really so terrible? he wonders. It stings to think Mac might have reacted to the initial thought just like this. Did it hurt him, to make the decision? Did he throw that thought aside just to make Dennis happy? The idea makes his stomach churn.

“It’s not bullshit, Mac, it happened like two days ago,” he snaps.

He wants to curl his arms protectively around Valentine’s afternoon, but the memory is already souring. Mac’s regret is so palpable he could choke on it.

“Oh. But…” Mac licks his lips, eyes darting restlessly between Dennis’s face and inside the closet. “But that’s….That’s…”

He sucks in a breath, expression twisting into something deeply pained. It makes Dennis’s heart thump to see it, but far more overwhelming is the fire now racing through his stomach, making nausea roil. He looks away. Will it ever get less painful, watching Mac look at their life rolled out on the carpet and choose to stomp all over it on his way out the door? How many times will Dennis lay it bare for him before he learns? Mac is Mac is Mac is Mac. He knows that.

“Sorry to disappoint,” he spits. “I’m still the only thing you’ve got.”

“It’s not that,” says Mac, expression tortured. “I just...Valentine’s Day, really? That just makes it seem so...”

Dennis knows the word he’s choking on.

“Well, newsflash,” he says curtly, crossing his arms. He has to look away. “You _are_ gay.”

He wasn’t exactly expecting balloons, but he thought Mac might push back against the idea with a little more of his trademark rage. He was prepared for it, even. Instead Mac stumbles back a step with his eyes enormous as saucers.

“What?”

“Yeah, Mac.” He scowls. “You’re gay, you’re fucking gay. We all knew it. You came out last year.”

Mac’s expression shutters over into the stormy aggression Dennis knows and expects. Finally.

“You’re lying,” he snarls. He slams the closet door shut so hard that Dennis jumps. “Why are you—You’re fucking lying, you—”

“Oh my God, this is so tired!” Dennis yells. “I can’t _do_ this with you for another ten long years, Mac! If we’re stuck like this—!”

“Nobody asked you to!”

“Fine, then go!” Dennis shouts, pointing at the door. “I am so sick of this. Just get the hell out of here if you can’t take it—Figure that shit out on your own this time! I can’t be here for it again.”

Agony passes over Mac’s face for a second—just flits over his mouth, his eyes, the creases in his chin. Just for a moment before it’s gone. Sharp, bright fury takes its place. Dennis can feel the white hot tendrils of it from here as keenly as if it were licking up his own gut. Mac’s eyes harden into a glare.

“Fine.”

“Fine,” Dennis sneers.

“I’ll go!”

“Then go!”

Mac slams the door on his way out.

As soon as he’s gone, Dennis regrets telling him to leave. Not because he wants to see his face anymore tonight—he might hit him if he does—but because he’s still afraid of somebody seeing, of someone they know recognizing Mac as being twelve years younger than he should be. Dennis wants to slam his fist into the wall but settles for clenching it hard, his nails biting into his palm.

Worse, still, is the other nagging worries: Where will he go, Dennis wonders? Mac’s usual haunts range from hurling rocks into the river to drinking and grinding his way through the Rainbow. The mental image of this Mac throwing himself to the wolves that way makes Dennis’s temper flare again, just as he’s getting deep enough into his beer to start calming down.

“Fucking Mac,” he snarls to the empty apartment, sitting down hard enough on the couch to spill from the bottle. He turns on the first show he can find, some awful reality TV. “Fucking closeted piece of shit.”

Dennis tries to lose himself in the petty drama of the gorgeous airheads onscreen, guaranteed to be stupid enough to redirect his anger toward the human population in general. But an hour later, for the first time in a long time, Dennis is hoping his sister comes home soon.


	4. is this trouble again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac feels like he’s reaching the end of his rope with this little test from God; he’s been awake for all of twenty minutes and has only had the time to put on coffee and start breakfast, but he’s worked himself into a very nice panic attack already. He checked everywhere in the living room, upturned his room, tore apart the bathroom, climbed the full length of the fire escape twice, searched every inch of the room and even peeked his head into Dennis’s room with his stomach fluttering, but there was nobody anywhere (well, except for the two teenage girls making out on the roof, who threw trash at him when he poked his head up). His best friend and his own younger self were gone.
> 
> Still, Mac reminds himself with a stab of worry in the pit of his stomach. They’re gone _still_. Because Mac hasn’t seen them since last night. Because he’s a horrible best friend and an even worse protector. Fuck, he’s burning the eggs.

**2005**

Mac feels like he’s reaching the end of his rope with this little test from God; he’s been awake for all of twenty minutes and has only had the time to put on coffee and start breakfast, but he’s worked himself into a very nice panic attack already. He checked everywhere in the living room, upturned his room, tore apart the bathroom, climbed the full length of the fire escape twice, searched every inch of the room and even peeked his head into Dennis’s room with his stomach fluttering, but there was nobody anywhere (well, except for the two teenage girls making out on the roof, who threw trash at him when he poked his head up). His best friend and his own younger self are gone.

Still, Mac reminds himself with a stab of worry in the pit of his stomach. They’re gone _still_. Because Mac hasn’t seen them since last night. Because he’s a horrible best friend and an even worse protector. Fuck, he’s burning the eggs.

He pokes at one of them. Yoke’s still not firm enough on top. Shit.

“Oh, holy shit.”

Their walls are thin enough that he can hear Dennis’s groan minutes before he emerges, yawning with his arms stretched over his head. He squints in protest at the natural light from the windows and cringes his face away.

“Jesus,” Dennis hisses. He’s changed into a soft sweater that falls over his hands when he lifts them to shield his eyes. “Can you shut those fucking blinds, please? Are you trying to let the entire neighborhood butt into our business?”

Dennis’s upper lip is curled over his teeth. Mac turns back to the pan to avoid smiling; Dennis wouldn’t like it. He’ll think Mac’s making fun of him.

“Good morning,” he says, checking the underside of one of the eggs. “Coffee’s in the pot.”

Dennis shoots him a wary look but goes and fixes himself a cup. He’s so particular about how he makes his—he won’t use milk or sugar, but he dumps in some nasty nondairy creamer and a spoonful of honey.

Or he started to, anyway. But—

“What’s this?” Dennis is staring at the packet of fake creamer and the bear-shaped jar beside it. “Did you take these out of the cabinet?”

Right. He went off dairy seriously a couple of years ago; he only ever flirted with it before then. Right now, he’s still using milk—and probably grouchy and sniffly ‘til lunchtime.

“Try it,” Mac coaxes anyway. “One and a half spoonfuls of honey.”

“I really like this stuff?” Dennis asks. He’s eyeing the spoils like he thinks they might bite if he puts his hand too close. “I prefer the 2%.”

Mac smiles.

“Just try it,” he encourages softly.

Dennis sits down just as the eggs are finishing; he's got bacon in the oven too but he puts the plate of eggs and some slices of potato he tried to fry in front of Dennis, along with a couple slices of toast. He grabs their pat of butter from the fridge as he frees the bacon, too, and lines them all up on a plate. The first row’s underneath a napkin so Dennis can dab off the grease, just like he likes.

Dennis is watching him with a strangely unguarded expression. Mac gives him a quick smile and squirts enough ketchup onto his plate to drown his potato slices entirely.

“That’s disgusting,” Dennis says eventually. He looks a little more like himself—that is to say, deeply hungover. He’s cringing with every clatter of the spoon around his coffee cup.

“It tastes good, Dennis,” he murmurs, nibbling on a piece. Dennis isn’t eating as quickly as he expected; maybe Mac went overboard on breakfast today, but he wanted to do something for Dennis. Besides, he thought that this younger version would be more willing to eat. Mac leans closer and says, “They’re still not back, you know.”

Dennis glances up with one eye squeezed shut.

“So?”

“So!” Mac says. “Where could they have gone, dude?”

“Probably went out,” he says, though he sounds marginally more worried than he did last night. His voice is tighter, and takes a moment to come. His shrug comes as an afterthought. “We go out sometimes, Mac.”

“Where? Where do we go?” Mac demands. “Besides here and the bar? And out to dinner occasionally, I guess—”

“See? They probably just went to a restaurant or something.”

“All night?” he stresses. He notices that Dennis is just pushing his food around without really touching it. Mac gestures at the toast with his fork. “Do you want jam for that?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I’m good.” Dennis’s brow furrows deeply as he looks back down. “I don’t know, maybe they went to Charlie’s.”

“Yeah…” he agrees hesitantly. “Let me see, we were doing those reshoots of The Matrix right around now, weren’t we?”

“See?” Dennis says eagerly. “That’s probably it. And maybe my older self thought it would be too weird or risky to come back here so soon.”

“Yeah...maybe.” Mac’s mouth twists down. “Well then fuck you, Dennis! You should have called me or something!”

Dennis blinks at him, fork hitting the plate as he rears back in shock. He twitches like the sound hurts his head.

“Why?”

“To let me know you were _okay_ ,” Mac frets, picking at the edge of the table now. His nails dig in, hard enough that it hurts.

“That wasn’t me! Don’t get mad at me!” he yelps. “That’s my older self’s fault! You can yell at me in a decade.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” he mutters. He glances up. “Eat some more of your toast, Dennis. And some bacon, it’ll help your hangover.”

He pushes the plate closer by an inch. Dennis picks up a strip and munches on it without complaint.

“Can you grab the syrup?” Dennis asks when Mac gets up to get a glass of water. He doesn't like people knowing it, but Dennis has a secret sweet tooth worse than Mac’s, he just doesn’t usually indulge.

“Don’t use too much,” Mac reminds him as he puts down the bottle. “You’ll crash on me by two.”

Dennis gives him a strange look. He opens his mouth, then seems to change his mind halfway through and just asks, “So?”

“Well...you get crabby,” he says, making an apologetic face. “I don’t want you beating up on yourself if you can’t stay awake.”

Dennis is still making that face. Mac can’t decipher it—he’s just sort of watching Mac guardedly, eyes a bit wider than usual, lips barely parted. Mac kicks his leg.

“Bacon,” he reminds him.

Dennis dutifully takes the piece of bacon. Something trickles through Mac’s veins, warm and pleased; he smiles at Dennis and scoops up some breakfast of his own.

“You know, I think we should head down to the bar today,” Mac says eventually. “I bet Dennis—I mean, you...the older you would probably expect me to meet him there.”

“Really? Why?”

“Just...It’s back where we started,” Mac mumbles, eyes on his plate. “He’d expect me to know that. Well, to know what he’s thinking. And I’m pretty sure he’d go back to where we first fell through the time portal, you know, to try and figure out what’s going on. He’d retrace his steps.”

There’s a strange frown that’s etched itself deeply into Dennis’s face. He’s not looking at Mac; more than anything, he’s just watching his fork push the potatoes through the small puddle of syrup trickling down the crust of his toast. Mac frowns too, automatic, but Dennis looks up before he can ask.

“We don’t know it’s a time portal,” he reminds Mac. “It could be anything.”

Mac rolls his eyes.

“You know what I mean, don’t be a dick.”

Dennis looks a little happier when he adds, “Secondly, I _really_ think we ought to head to Charlie’s first. That’s where I’d go.”

“Fine, dude.” Mac feels impatient; he really doesn’t care where they start. As long as they’re _starting_. “Then let’s call Charlie!”

“Oh, right.” Dennis sits up, blinking. “I guess I didn’t think of that. Ha.”

But Charlie hasn’t seen either of them—Dennis does a mediocre job of acting like everything’s normal, asking Charlie if Mac’s come by or if he’s noticed anything “unusual,” but Charlie must not notice. Dennis looks a little more furious when he hangs up. Not nearly as furious as Mac is, though, because it’s just dawned on him that he doesn’t have a cell phone here—his smart phone wouldn’t exist yet even if his service provider _could_ reach back to 2005.

Like worry or hunger, their anger feeds off each other too. Before Mac even knows what’s happening, they’ve both blown up and there’s bits of toast all over the floor.

“Stop fucking yelling at me! For like, two seconds! God,” Dennis shouts. “You have no right to be mad at me, you have _no_ right!”

“I’m not mad at you, I’m just pissed off in general!”

“Well I’m not angry with you either! It’s Charlie that I’m mad at!”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

“Then why are you yelling at me? What the hell do you want me to do about it?!”

“Nothing, you’re just usually the one coming up with the plans!” Dennis screams, and they both fall silent.

They look at each other for a long minute.

“Oh,” Mac says.

Dennis eats some more eggs, seemingly just looking for any reason to avoid Mac’s eyes. He chews for about five seconds before shoving back his chair.

“Alright, I’m going to dig up some Aspirin,” he mutters.

Mac figures all the screaming hurt his hangover and just watches Dennis storm off to his room. By the time he comes back out, over an hour later, he’s showered and gotten dressed and looks a little more alive. Mac’s sprawled on the couch watching Food Network in his sweatpants.

“Hey,” Mac calls amiably. “So I’ve been doing some thinking…”

“Oh great.” Dennis rolls his eyes and throws himself down into the nearest seat dramatically. “ _This_ should be good.”

It stings, the automatic lack of faith, but Mac tries not to let it show on his face.

“I think we should go down to the bar and warn the others,” Mac urges. “At least let’s go tell them what’s going on! Maybe they can give us a clue or...or, I don’t know, just see something that we haven’t figured out yet on our own.”

Dennis looks thoughtful.

“That’s...actually not a bad idea, Mac.”

Mac sits up straighter, grinning. “Thanks, Dennis.”

“Yeah, maybe fresh eyes is what we need.” Dennis is nodding slowly now, and he seems to be talking almost to himself—Mac can’t be sure. He looks up and his eyes refocus as they land on Mac’s. “Okay. Why don’t I, uh, give you a few minutes to get dressed and we can head down there.”

“Sure,” says Mac, jumping to his feet. He’d happily go just like this, but whatever prevents an argument. Whatever propels them out of the house. “Okay.”

Dennis’s fingers drum on the steering wheel the whole drive over. The sound makes Mac anxious too, but the atmosphere in the car is too tense for him to feel comfortable enough to reach over and make it stop. He practically jumps out when they pull up to the bar, not even waiting to hold the door open for Dennis as he dashes inside.

“Dee? Charlie?”

“Shouldn’t you wait for me?” Dennis mutters as he trails in behind him. “You’re a little conspicuous here.”

Mac glances at him, right as the basement door opens and Charlie comes out juggling rat traps.

For a second, Mac’s floored. Charlie looks the same in almost every way, maybe more so than the rest of them. Regardless, there’s something about looking into his face—young, childish, somehow more aware than it will turn out to be. Maybe he just hasn’t started sniffing glue with any regularity yet. But even still, it’s a face Mac knows even better than his own. More recognizable to him than Dennis’s, or Dee’s. The familiarity makes the youthfulness seem even more strange, like Mac’s subconscious can pick out all the places where the wrinkles and sun damage and extra freckles should sit, and he can’t see past the disconnect.

“Charlie,” he says dumbly.

“Woah,” Charlie says. His eyes are huge and locked on Mac, and all rat traps spill from his arms and clatter to the floor. Mac doesn’t answer, he just stares back.

Dennis edges around Mac’s broad back.

“Hey Charlie,” he says cautiously.

“I...Is that…?” Charlie’s gaze darts between the two of them, blinks coming more rapidly. He smacks the side of his head and shakes it. “Oh, I’m not passed out. Mac, is that _you_?”

He squints like that will make the puzzle pieces fall effortlessly together. He leans closer. Dennis hastily side-steps Mac and drapes his arm across Charlie’s shoulders, turning him away.

“Come sit down. Let’s talk,” he says casually. “Mac, can you grab us a couple of beers?”

“On it.”

Dennis doesn’t take his arm off Charlie while he talks, rapid, low in his ear. Mac catches most of it where he’s leaning on the bar across from them, sipping on a beer that got discontinued in 2009. He liked this brand, he missed it. He lets the words _time travel_ and _2017_ and _no, I’m serious_ wash over him without letting them find a foothold in his brain.

Charlie’s still reeling from the news when Dee comes in, and then Dennis has to start all over again. Charlie seems more focused the second time around, listening to the story with what’s probably the most attention he’s ever given anything. Occasionally he interjects with a question or two. Dee’s silent for the most part, though now and again she glances over at Mac for clarification about something. Aside from her questions, Mac stays silent and lets Dennis explain.

They all mill around, barely speaking, hardly drinking, though of course that only lasts a few hours before Dee and Charlie start playing pool, which of course lapses into a minor argument. Once it becomes apparent that their counterparts won’t be coming in today, Mac relaxes—or at least, stops watching the door like he’s waiting for news of a catastrophe—and begins helping out around the bar. A few regulars cast him curious glances, but nobody asks him anything outright. Mostly they don’t seem to notice.

He’s in the backroom taking a brandy break when the fighting starts outside. It’s different from their usual tiffs, even the blowout ones that sometimes turn physical; he strains toward the door, trying to suss out what the difference is. Then he singles out a new voice, one he doesn’t recognize amidst the clamor of the others’ dissatisfaction.

“...That’s the crazy bitch who punched me in my eye.”

“Charlie!” chides the one Mac doesn’t know. “That’s my sister.”

“Well that’s just _great_ ,” comes Charlie’s voice, drawing the word out long and sarcastic. Mac winces. “Tell her not to throw such a bullshit right hook next time!”

“It wasn’t bullshit, Charlie—” another voice says, a woman’s.

“Oh, this is such a shame,” Dee says. Mac rolls his eyes—she’s overdoing the theatrics, just like usual. Dumb bitch never learned how to be subtle. “Who knew this would cause so much tension?”

“These people are assholes, Terrell,” the same unfamiliar woman says, and Mac realizes who the strange voices belong to. “I don’t like you working here.”

“Well I didn’t realize they were so comfortable saying stupid, sexist shit to my sister,” Terrell says. “Come on, Janelle. I’ll take you home.”

Dennis and Charlie’s voices raise up in unison, in protest. The front door slams.

“So, Dennis,” says Dee after a moment’s silence. She sounds incredibly smug; Mac can just picture the self-satisfied smile she must be wearing. _Bitch_. “How was your shift last night? Do anything fun after closing?”

“What do you care what I did with my night, Dee?” he asks.

Mac splits into a huge smile. _Get her._

“I’m just wondering,” she says with that same faux-innocence, unnaturally high and caring. “You seemed like you were getting pretty friendly with some of our new regulars—”

“If you recall, some pretty big stuff happened last night,” Dennis laughs. “Time-travel kind of trumps a night out, Dee. Mac and I ended up crashing as soon as we got home.”

She says nothing. Mac’s dying to know what her face looks like, but he’s still got half a glass of brandy and if he leaves now, he’ll have to go back to work.

“Hey, speaking of—Can you help me find that song we were dancing to last night, Charlie?” Dennis says. “The crowd went _wild_ to it, did you see that?”

“Wait a minute. You’re still going ahead with the gay bar?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Dennis asks her, surprised.

“Because Terrell just _left_. And I don’t think he’s coming back here after what Charlie said to Janelle.”

“It’ll be fine, Dee,” he says dismissively.

“Yeah, we’re building up a pretty good reputation around town,” Charlie agrees. “We can handle this by ourselves. Hey Dennis, let’s go check out the music.”

Their voices dim, then fade away completely.

Mac gets about—he’d estimate around thirty seconds’ peace. Then the back door jerks open, and Dee slams it behind her and approaches the desk with a glare.

“What did you do?” she hisses.

He rolls his eyes.

“Relax, Dee. I didn’t _do_ anything.”

“I know that! That’s exactly the problem,” Dee says. “Do you _want_ to be a gay bar for the rest of our lives?”

Mac shrugs.

“ _Seriously_?”

“Look, Dee,” he says, suddenly uncomfortable. He rubs the back of his neck. “There’s some—stuff that goes down, you know, later on, and I—”

But he’s saved from having to come out to her—again—when someone shouts his name from outside. They sound fairly desperate, so Mac leaves his brandy and seizes the opportunity for escape. Dee’s glaring daggers at him as he slips out, and he’s pretty sure he’ll pay for this one later.

The guys just want help moving the jukebox; Charlie’s got some idea in his head that it will look better a few inches to the right. Mac would argue except he’s pretty invested in keeping them both cool-headed enough to stick closeby tonight. He doesn’t want Dee to catch him alone, not while she’s still running so hot.

“What a sore loser,” Dennis mutters, and Mac looks up in time to see Dee stomp around the bar and pour herself a shot. Then Dennis looks up suddenly, smiling at him. Mac forgets about his stupid sister and grins back.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

The night is busier than Mac’s used to. Despite Terrell quitting, Charlie was right in one respect: They still have a reputation. The line outside isn’t quite as long as Mac remembers from their fleeting week as a gay bar in his younger days, but he’s pretty busy checking IDs at the door anyway. A few people ask where Terrell is; he forgot that he didn’t used to do a whole lot of security detail, not in the beginning. Not for the bar. He would stick close to the gang and make sure there was no trouble there, but nobody ever IDed.

A tall, skinny guy checks him out as he walks over the threshold inside. Mac gazes back, not really interested but some fleeting impulse making him give a once-over anyway. Not enough muscle. Still, his face is cute enough; Mac returns the small smile, and the guy blushes and hurries away.

“Pussy,” Mac mutters.

The next guy hits on him almost an hour later, and he’s much more Mac’s type. Taller by a few inches and nearly as broad, he splits into a huge, arrogant smile as he rakes his eyes over Mac’s face nice and slow.

“Hey,” he says, handing over his ID. He’s only thirty, but he doesn’t seem to mind that Mac’s older. His—Derek’s—gaze lingers on Mac’s biceps when Mac hands him back his license.

“Hi.”

“You’re new,” Derek notes.

Mac laughs suddenly. New? Something about his reaction makes Derek’s forehead crease.

“That’s funny?”

“No, I just—I’ve worked here for forever,” Mac explains.

“Huh.” Derek looks him over again, his whole body this time. Mac’s chest puffs out reflexively. “Wonder how I missed you. Well I’ll be over at the bar, whenever you get a chance to take a break.”

Mac blinks at him. “Oh...okay.”

“To buy you a drink,” he explains, a little impatient now.

“Oh,” Mac says in a new voice, eyes wider. “Okay.”

Derek flashes Mac another super smile and heads toward where Dee’s shaking up a drink. It takes Mac a long, dazed moment to get back to what he was doing.

It’s not that he didn’t get hit on before, really. Even when he was closeted it happened occasionally—he always used to wonder what gave him away. Or more like what made them think so, offense taken. After he came out, it mostly happened whenever he went to the Rainbow, once he was drunk already and looking to flirt—or make out with a dancer, whichever came easiest. He’s not used to being hit on at Paddy’s. Not exactly sacred ground, but it feels like someone stepping boldly onto his home turf.

Maybe he should get used to it though, he thinks, his eyes sweeping the room. Someone taps his arm, and the next man waiting in line gives him a smile nearly as bright as Derek’s was.

The line slows down around eleven-thirty and Mac seizes the opportunity to take a load off at the bar. He forces a couple of lesbians out of their seats, and they’re pissed but can’t find anyone to complain to, so they just saunter off toward the other end of the bar. Dennis is laughing as he pours Mac a drink.

“Dee’s gonna be pissed you’re driving away her best customers,” Dennis says.

“What?” Mac looks down at the women, who are indeed chatting with Dee as she serves them another round. “Seriously?”

“Dead serious, man,” Dennis says, wiping his hands on a rag. “Look at them! Dee makes a killing with the women in here, I’m telling you.”

Mac thinks this over.

“Lesbians,” he scoffs.

Dennis looks as though he agrees.

“At least she’s shut up about her tips.”

“Yeah.”

Mac drums his fingers on the counter, thinking. Derek’s sitting a few barstools down and Mac can feel him shooting glances this way every couple of minutes. He thinks about how easy it would be to get up, slide next to him and take him up on that offer for a drink. He wonders if it would lead anywhere. He takes Derek in again, when he’s not looking back, and thinks that he’d let it.

Dennis is still standing across from him, which Mac remembers with a start when he slides him a healthy sized mug of beer a few minutes after Mac finishes his first drink.

“Can you come help me back here for a few minutes, Mac?” Dennis murmurs. His eyes are fixed a little ways down the bar. 

“Sure,” Mac says, getting to his feet at once. “Are you tired? Do you need me to take over?”

He’s not good at mixing drinks but he can look pissed enough that no one asks for him to correct it. Same thing in his book.

“No, it’s just getting busy,” Dennis says with a little shrug. It looks no more or less crowded than ever, but Dennis must know the rhythm of the crowd as it relates to their volume of drink orders. Mac dutifully rounds the bar and stops so close that their elbows are touching.

They drift around each other. More guys flirt with Dennis than with him; though it bothered Mac at the door, suddenly it’s worse now that Dennis gets the attention. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. Mac forgot how _beautiful_ he used to be—he struggles to come up with a different word, but there really isn’t a better one for it. How didn’t it blind him? How did his younger self ever get anything done? Wasn’t the urge to kiss him breathless immobilizing, every time he curled a smile even halfway in Mac’s direction? 

Not that he didn’t give into the urge eventually, the reckless need to get closer—so close it eventually ripped them apart. But the tenacity to hold out for even a few more years, that’s worth a bit of marvel. Mac’s not sure he can hold out another few minutes.

Dennis tops off a fruity-looking drink with a toothpick speared with citrus garnish. He licks juice off the side of his hand, it definitely isn’t sanitary; Mac’s not the only one who freezes, watching. He’s the only one who Dennis looks up at, though.

“Can you pass me a napkin?” he says, pointing, and then when Mac does: “Make me a drink?”

“What do you want?” Mac asks, already taking a glass out from under the bar.

Dennis shrugs.

“Something that ends in -tini.”

So Mac, sneaking peeks at the ancient, slow internet on Dennis’s swiped flip phone, makes him a vodkatini. He wants to concoct an açaí-tini for him, because he thinks Dennis would prefer it, but they don’t have the ingredients for that.

Dennis splits into this huge grin when he looks up.

“This is great, Mac,” he encourages. “Except for the candied fruit. That’s not the right garnish for this type of drink. You should use a lemon, or olives—”

“Let me see,” Mac insists, tugging his glass close. He takes a deep sip and shrugs. “Tastes good to me.”

Dennis looks at him in horror.

“Well, my tastebuds are much more refined, Mac! I’ll make you one the right way, and show you.”

Mac watches Dennis’s hands while he works. Dennis is quicker than him, and less messy too; he doesn’t spill at all while he whips up another drink. His eyes are shining when he passes it to Mac. Mac notices a few customers trying to get his attention from down the bar but Dennis turns his back on them, watching Mac expectantly like he’s got nothing better to do in the world.

The lemon peel adds a little _too_ much zest, in Mac’s opinion. He pulls a face and gives the drink back.

“I’ll stick with this one,” he says, and steals the fruitier one for himself.

“Hey!” Dennis swats at his arm. “You don’t get a drink after failing my class, asshole.”

Mac snorts. “Why not? It’s how I survived high school.”

Finally Dennis cracks a smile.

He forgot how it feels to work beside Dennis, though after his short-lived bartending career he settles in to drink and watch without trying to help any more. Dennis murmurs instructions now and then, explaining what he’s doing as he mixes a Moscow mule. It’s simple, but Mac still has a little trouble following along.

He just forgot, that’s all. How Dennis’s smile looks when it comes easy, how his arm feels draped around Mac’s shoulders. It’s a warm, familiar weight—only foreign because he’s not used to feeling it when Dennis isn’t trying to guide him anywhere. When Dennis pulls him closer and leaves it there just because he wants to.

It’s a good night. Dennis thrills at his hefty stack of tips. Even Dee looks happy, counting out her slightly more meager pile with a smug expression. Mac watches them divvy up the money from the register from a barstool close by, not helping. He trusts Dennis not to screw him out of his cut; it’s his own throat he’d be slitting anyway, considering how often they pool their money for stupid shit. Like rent.

Mac only speaks up once the others, with their chattering getting more lively, start scooping their profits up and folding them into their pockets.

“What about Frank?” Mac asks, though he reaches out to take his pile too.

The others stop talking to look at him. Mac glances up with a frown.

“What?” Dee says finally.

“Just ‘cause he’s not working today, I bet he still wants his share of everything we made tonight.”

And they made a killing. Mac hasn’t had disposable income of his own in years, but if this keeps up, he’s _definitely_ buying a karaoke machine for the apartment.

“Mac.” Dennis forms his name slowly. “What are you talking about?”

“Frank,” Mac repeats dumbly. Something’s pulling at the edge of his brain, a dim warning to stop talking like he usually gets when Dennis flickers a glare in his direction, and sometimes for softer expressions from him too. But as usual, he goes on: “Your dad…?” It clicks, and Mac straightens up. “Oh, wait. No, never mind, he doesn’t show up ‘til next year. Sorry about that.”

Shrugging, he slides off his barstool and finishes off his drink, throwing his head back. When he swipes his arm across his mouth, he notices everyone else staring.

“What?” he asks, uncomfortable.

“Mac, explain to me just exactly what happens with—”

“Our dad?” Dee squeaks. “ _Here_? For how long?!”

“Yeah, how long?”

The twins are glaring at him. Mac holds up his hands.

“Kind of...awhile,” he says, withholding the full force of the truth only because Dennis and Dee’s expressions are terrifying. He’d never admit it, but he’s afraid of the twins when they work together. All that combined rage and no one to temper it. “Don’t look at me, it’s Charlie’s fault—”

When they both turn to snarl in Charlie’s suddenly terrified face, Mac makes his escape. He starts cleanup duty, a task equal parts disgusting and irritating enough that he knows nobody will want to stop him so long as it’s him doing the work instead of them.

He dumps an armful of empty beer mugs into the sink for Charlie to wash later and waits for the argument to die down, if only marginally, before he pipes up that it’s late and they let him go just to stop the complaining. Dennis doesn’t follow him out, but Mac will take the long walk home in the dark over getting dragged back into that conversation.

“Any luck?” Dennis asks.

It’s still early, not yet two. The sun warmed the back of his neck even though he was only outside for a few minutes. Mac shakes his head as he lets the door swing closed on the back alley.

“No,” he says, and that makes another day: Their other selves aren’t at the apartment, nor Charlie or Dee’s, and they aren’t anywhere in or around the bar. Which means all this time, Mac’s just been wasting time… “Dennis—”

“Yeah, I know,” he says sharply, but he sounds more worried than he’s been yet when he comes around the counter and puts his hands on Mac’s shoulders. “Calm down, asshole, okay? You’re not gonna be able to get anything done if you don’t stop freaking out.”

“Sorry if I’m worried about you and me going missing!” he bursts, and regrets it as soon as Dennis’s expression hardens. Mac closes his eyes and breathes out as steadily as he can manage. “I think...I’m gonna go look for them.”

“Where?”

“Wherever,” says Mac, pulling out from under his hands. “I’ll look everywhere.”

“What, blow off work?” Dennis asks as though surprised to see him turn immediately for the door.

Mac blinks. “Yeah. Is that a problem?”

“No.” Dennis just looks at him, but he doesn’t say anything. Mac turns to go again after a moment’s hesitation and Dennis reaches out toward him, shouting, “Wait!”

“What?” Mac asks, turning back toward him impatiently. Every minute not searching for him is a minute wasted.

But Dennis just heads toward the back room without a word. Mac breathes out an irritated sigh. Dennis returns a minute later, pulling on a peacoat.

“At least let me get my jacket, jeez,” he mutters. Mac holds open the door and lets Dennis go through ahead of him.


	5. i’d do it all again for you, i’ve got nowhere else to go

**2017**

The first thing Dee says when she comes home is, “Why’s Mac staying at Charlie and Frank’s? What’d you say to him? Something really dumb, I bet.”

A momentary rush of gratitude surges through him as his sister tells him, with one sentence, everything he wants to know. His affected sneer comes a beat too late but Dee, shrugging off her purse and heading to change into yoga pants first thing like always, doesn’t seem to notice. Thank God.

Regardless, the touch of amusement in her voice grates on his nerves.

“I didn’t say anything to him,” Dennis argues, trying to remind her who’s really in charge between them. “He’s being a drama queen.”

“Sure,” she says, sounding infuriatingly like she doesn’t believe a word out of his mouth. Her eyes alight on the discarded takeout menu. “Did you order dinner?”

Mac’s significant portion of dinner sits out on the counter still—he never did understand portion control. Dennis left it (mostly) untouched, but he was saving Mac his share since he left before the delivery guy even arrived. Well, fuck him.

“Yeah. That stuff’s yours,” says Dennis, jerking his chin. “Take anything you want.”

Dee gripes a bit that he didn’t get her any orange chicken, but she settles in happily enough to bitch with him about the reality TV that’s still on. It’s a good night, as far as distractions go.

Mac doesn’t come back until nearly dinner the next day. Dennis doesn’t know where he is, and he tries to tell himself he doesn’t care—it’s not as though he has any means of contacting Mac, even if the urge struck. No cell phone is starting to become a serious pain in the ass.

Dennis enjoys the day off from Mac, who after all is a headache incarnate, whistling as he cleans up the kitchen and living room, runs a few errands with no interruptions, starts prepping for dinner. He tries to leave the other room alone, not particularly enjoying the reminder that he’s alone in the house; Dee has a date. _Dee_. And Dennis is alone in the apartment slicing eggplant for a guy who probably won’t show up, and who’ll bitch the whole time about how much he hates vegetables even if he does. Dennis rolls his eyes at himself, cheeks pinking, but it doesn’t slow down the knife.

The front door finally opens— _not_ that he was waiting for the sound—and a quick glance at the clock shows it’s nearly seven o’clock. He tries not to think about where Mac could have possibly been all night and day as he clears his throat and finds as casual a voice as he can.

“Hey,” he calls. He’s impressed with himself; really, that sounded almost normal. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” Mac says. He isn't looking at him, but he pauses when he pulls open the bedroom door. “Yes.”

He mutters it furiously, barely turning his head to speak to Dennis. He yanks the door closed behind him and moments later Dennis hears the shower turn on.

He chuckles to himself.

“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” he calls, hopefully loud enough for Mac to hear through two closed doors and the steam. Under his breath, he adds, “Even for dickhead _children_ who are so petulant they’d rather wander the streets all night than man up and face his problems.”

The eggplant smells the best, in Dennis’s opinion, though Mac seems much more interested in the diced up potatoes as he shovels them by forkfuls into his face. Maybe he’s hoping he can eat so fast and so forcefully that he doesn’t have to talk to Dennis at all. Well, too bad—Dennis doesn’t give up that easily.

“Slow down and eat some chicken, Jesus,” Dennis hisses, one hand darting out to still Mac’s wrist. “I didn’t spend two hours on it for you to fill up on carbs.”

Mac shoots him a glare.

“I can eat whatever I want to eat,” he says mulishly, and Dennis throws his hands in the air.

“He speaks! He _speaks_ , ladies and gentlemen.”

“Don’t be such a dick about it.”

Mac puts down his fork, brow pulled together like he’s concentrating hard on something. Dennis is surprised he’s not sticking his tongue between his teeth while he contemplates the table; that’s how he always looks when he has to do the paychecks, or he’s considering the best angle to shoot the camera for Project Badass.

“I’ve found that talking usually helps get my point across,” Dennis suggests.

Mac throws him a dirty look.

“I want to hear more about it,” he says, speaking to his plate. He stabs at a few pieces of chicken, not eating, but at least he’s picked the fork back up.

Dennis leans back in his chair. That’s not what he was expecting.

“Huh?” he says to give himself another minute. “What?”

“I want to hear more about the future!” Mac says, angry. “I want to know how we turn out.”

“Oh.” Not what he was expecting, either. He can hear how much lower his voice dips: “You're wondering if we—?”

“I just want to understand what’s going on,” Mac says, frowning at his chicken. “Why’s God doing this? What did we _do_?”

Dennis bristles.

Stupid! Mac didn’t mean it like that, of course he didn’t. Dennis is glad he bit his tongue before; the burning in his gut could be so much worse.

“We didn’t do anything,” Dennis says, though the back of his mind is wandering. If God was real and wanted to teach the two of them a lesson, They couldn’t have chosen a worse day. Or a more significant one.

“Still…Maybe if we retraced our steps…”

“We’re not trying to track down a lost wallet,” Dennis says, setting his jaw.

“Well, what do you suggest then?” Mac says, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t exactly hear you coming up with any solutions here—”

“Fine, you want to know something?” Dennis says. Anything to stop the anger itching up his arms. “Something about the future, let’s see...Well, you already know the big one.”

“Huh?”

Dennis gestures around, encompassing it all: Dee’s kitchen, Dee’s bedroom, Dee’s apartment. Not _theirs_ , but Dee’s. It seems safe enough—giving Mac a taste of what he thinks he wants, but nothing that could put them in jeopardy. He’s still not sure what exactly he’s afraid will happen if they upset the space-time continuum too much, but he just knows that he instinctively shies away from finding out; when Dennis’s gut tells him to run, he just does. It usually gets him out of trouble

“Oh,” says Mac. He picks glumly at his dinner again. “Right.”

“And, and I bought you that karaoke machine you’ve always wanted,” Dennis says on impulse. Stupid, he thinks, and then stops thinking about it when Mac look up hopefully. It’s a much better expression on him than the frown. Something untwists inside Dennis’s stomach.

“Really? Can I see it?”

“It...it burned. In the fire,” Dennis says. “Actually, we only had it for that one day. We stashed it in my room ‘cause we were having company over, and the thing took up a fair amount of space, you know? Didn’t leave a whole lot of room to have guests. It was Thanksgiving.”

“I didn’t even get to use it?” he asks, crestfallen again.

“We got one good song out of it,” Dennis mumbles. He was right, of course, Mac can’t sing—though strangely, sitting on their couch and watching Mac do his damnedest to belt You’re the Inspiration, he didn’t notice how off-key Mac sounded. Not really, anyway. Mac looked right at him the whole time, so Dennis had to focus on making the right expressions so Mac wouldn’t get insulted again, or else he might start a repeat of the fight from that dinner, the one that convinced Dennis to buy the stupid machine in the first place. It only took him a year to make good on his promise; try as Dennis might to outpace him, Mac didn’t forget spit shakes like that.

Now Mac’s gazing at him silently across the table. Dennis realizes he hasn’t been controlling his expression and hastens to smooth it into something approaching apathy.

“I can’t believe you burned down our place,” Mac mutters, and just like that Dennis snaps out of it.

“Me? I didn’t burn down anything!” he bites. “Frank started a money fire in your room.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, because Frank’s an idiot?”

“Wait, Frank…” Mac says. His eyes widen as something clicks into place. “Like your dad, Frank? _That_ Frank?”

“Yes,” Dennis says sharply enough to hide the sudden sulkiness he feels. “He bought half the bar.”

“ _What_?”

“I know, dude!” Dennis explodes. “Thank you! You know, we all just sort of got used to him being here, but it’s _weird_ , isn’t it? What would you do if—”

He breaks off before he finishes the question. Well, Mac’s opinion is always shitty anyway, when it comes to Luther.

“I do not want your asshole dad coming in and muscling into our business,” says Mac. “It’s _ours_. The bar’s ours.”

“Well, it’s still ours,” Dennis concedes. He pauses for a moment, thinking. “Actually if we didn’t have his company credit card, we wouldn’t be able to do _half_ the cool shit that we do.”

He doesn’t understand where it comes from, this bizarre need to defend Frank to him. For a second it feels like this Mac is an outsider and Dennis has to protect Paddy’s from him. But then Mac starts eating, taking such huge mouthfuls that his cheeks puff out, as though he hasn’t eaten in days. It might not be far off—he left before dinner last night, and Dennis doesn’t know when he ate before that or if he’s scrounged something up since. And then he’s just Mac again: Stupid, useless, dependable Mac. Dennis frowns as this thought comes to him, letting the silence linger so Mac has time to swallow.

“Like what?” Mac says, panting between bites. Christ, it’s like when he gained weight all over again; he used to wheeze while he ate then, too, one of his many irritating habits that Dennis knows. He knows it by sound alone and knows how to diffuse it, too.

“Hm?”

“What kind of things do we get up to on Frank’s dime,” he clarifies impatiently.

“Alright, I’ll—I’ll tell you,” Dennis says. He flaps both hands at Mac. “But only if you stop eating so fast, _sheesh_. You’re going to choke.”

Mac rolls his eyes but deliberately slows it down, painstakingly dragging his fork to his mouth at a snail’s pace. He’s mocking Dennis, but Dennis doesn’t care. Whatever makes him shut up and _listen_ for once.

He forgot how annoying it was when Mac didn’t do everything he said. Doesn’t he know that Dennis knows what’s best?

“We hosted poker night,” he starts, and Mac’s eyes widen so much it’s comical. Dennis suppresses a smile.

“...which, I mean, is totally ridiculous,” he finishes just as they’re both cleaning the last of the food from their plates. “Like Dee has any idea how to play regular poker, let alone fancy variations of it. Of course she lost all the money!”

Mac rolls his eyes, involved in the story. At least this type of deja vu feels good, natural. They had this exact conversation right after it happened, of course, but it tethers him to fall back into the easy rhythm of it. The Mac that’s sitting across from him doesn’t look the part as Dennis remembers it, but the rest is familiar as a childhood fable. It’s better than reliving one of their arguments, anyway.

“Too bad Frank’s money can’t buy a time machine,” Mac sighs.

Dennis makes a quiet noise of agreement, pushing the last cut of potato around his plate and watching the juices from the eggplant trail, slimy, in its wake.

“Mac,” he says eventually. When he glances up, Mac’s frozen to watch him. “What if we can never fix this? What if you’re stuck here?”

And _he’s_ stuck _there_ , Dennis thinks, but he doesn’t say it. It stings more than it should, chips away at a place he didn’t realize he was holding onto. He can’t stand Mac most days, but it feels wrong not to know where he is, either. Mac should be standing right next to him, solid and healthy and ready to take whatever swings Dennis throws that day. That’s where he belongs, where he fits best. It’s not right that he’s unreachable, should the urge strike...Not that it very often does. _This_ Mac, sitting across from him, is real as any other but it’s not the same. He plays the part right, says the words that fit, but there’s no shared history between them. Or there is, but only up to a point.

And now that point diverged. This is one experience he and the older Mac won’t have together, he realizes. There aren’t very many of those. He feels dull where the edges of that cognizance should prick.

“Then I guess I should go shopping,” Mac says, shrugging, dragging Dennis back into their conversation by the back of his shirt. Dennis blinks, trying to get his bearings. “How much muscle did I tack on, Dennis? I saw my t-shirts, I don’t think they’re gonna fit.”

“You traded up sizes when you got fat,” Dennis tells him absently. “I’m still fighting you on going back down to a medium.”

“I don’t think my biceps will fit into a medium,” Mac says doubtfully.

Dennis rolls his eyes. “You cut off your sleeves anyway, it hardly matters.”

“Did you say I got _fat_?”

“You know what, I think I was right before. I shouldn’t tell you anything about what’s coming.”

“Too late for that!” he says shrilly.

Dennis huffs, frustrated. Rookie mistake, letting Mac distract him into folding his guard. Spilling whatever Mac wanted to know against his better instincts.

“I’m not having this conversation,” he informs him, and gets up to scrape that last potato into the trash.

“But I want—”

“It’s done!” Dennis hisses. Rinsing his plate in the sink is just loud enough to drown out whatever Mac’s muttering under his breath.

He’s surprised the plate doesn’t break with how hard he slams it into the bottom rack, though he should probably be more thankful he didn’t smash up Dee’s dishwasher. No way she’d let him get out of _that_ scot-free.

“This affects _both_ of us.”

Mac’s voice is so much closer than expected that Dennis whirls around, his heart hammering away in his chest. Mac’s standing a foot away with his arms crossed.

“What?” Dennis retorts, a beat too late.

“I said, this isn’t just about you!” Mac shouts, fists balling. “I’m the one stuck in some other time, you know.”

“So?!”

Does he really think this doesn’t matter to Dennis at all? Mac might be the one stuck out of time, but he’s not the only one who’s floundering. He’s not the only one who wants—

“So you don’t get to make all the decisions for us!” Mac says, jabbing a finger in Dennis’s chest. He tears it away right before Dennis can grab it and rip it off. “This is about me too, you know. I should get a vote.”

“Fine,” Dennis says. “Fine! What do you want to know about the future, Mac? What precious fucking questions have you been wrestling with for the past day and a half?”

He spits the words, but Mac’s oddly less riled up than before. Dennis scowls; Mac’s usually good for a fight, or groveling, when Dennis raises his voice—either one would feel good right now, he could wrap his head around whichever. Instead, Mac frowns in his direction for a long minute before his expression abruptly collapses into something else altogether. Dennis can’t parse it, but seeing it makes his stomach dip strangely.

“You know, I bet we figure out what’s going on today anyway,” Mac says in a different, softer voice.

The one-eighty is so unexpected that Dennis’s spine stiffens.

“What?”

“I bet we go down to the bar and figure this out, like, straight away,” Mac says earnestly. He takes a step closer, and Dennis is already against the counter, so he doesn’t shrink back. “Then it won’t matter if you don’t wanna tell me what’s gonna happen. We’ll just go back to normal.”

“Well, we’re in the future now,” Dennis mutters, but he looks away as he says it. “It seems like a moot thing to worry about, at this point.”

Mac’s not a patient man; it doesn’t make sense that he could wait out the mystery, let things happen to him when they happen. What’s his endgame here? Dennis can’t see a clear one.

“See? Exactly,” Mac says in that same quiet voice that sends a shiver down Dennis’s spine like he’s bracing for a hit. “We’re gonna work this out, Den, I swear. Lightning fast. I got this.”

He makes a weak karate chopping motion in the air between them. Dennis, despite himself, huffs a laugh. Mac’s answering smile is luminous as it blooms across his face.

Then he shifts so swiftly that Dennis starts—but it’s too late, Mac is waving his hands and leaning into Dennis’s personal bubble. He didn’t realize they got so close until Mac’s nose is inches away.

“Now, tell me about this weight I’m gonna gain. Is it really fat, or do you just not know what muscle—”

“Oh, not this again—!”

The front door interrupts the escalating fight. Dee rounds the corner with a smile on her face that falls the second she lays eyes on Mac, flattening instead into an unyielding line. Dennis knows the feeling.

“Oh great,” she says, “you guys still haven’t fixed this?!”

Dennis whirls on her.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” he snaps.

“I don’t see how.” She gestures at Mac, then puts her hands on her hips. “Just trade this one in for the other, it’s not rocket science.”

“I—It’s completely rocket science, Dee!” he says, and Mac steps out of the way in the same movement that Dennis starts angrily toward her. He stops short a foot away, quivering. “‘Just trade them in’? How do you propose we do that, exactly?”

“Let me just hop in my time machine,” Mac scoffs. “Jet on back to 2005.”

“Maybe I’ll start up my spaceship and drive it into a black hole!” Dennis agrees, shooting him a glance. They don’t exactly share a smile, but something mutual passes between them when Mac catches his eye.

“Alright, I get it,” Dee says, aggrieved. “I was just venting. Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. I’ll calm down when _he’s_ out of here, and _Mac’s_ —”

Dennis pauses, finger still uselessly pointed at the man behind him. At Mac. Young and boastful and all wrong, but still Mac nevertheless.

Dee smirks.

“He’s what, back home where he belongs?”

“Shut up,” Dennis grumbles.

“Yeah, shut up, Dee.” Mac comes up behind him, patting his shoulder. “The Dynamic Duo is gonna figure this out like it’s _nothing_.”

“Oh, is it nothing? Is it nothing, Mac?” Dee taunts, sticking out her lower lip. “Good luck. Let me know how the _Dynamic Duo_ —” she spits the name, mocking it, “—manages where thousands of years of hard science couldn’t.”

“We’re not relying on science,” Mac says loftily, nose in the air. “We’re relying on _God_. With Him on our side, there’s nothing that stands in our way. Right, Dennis?” 

Dennis mutters, “Jesus H. Christ,” pinches the bridge of his nose, and looks up at the ceiling. Grinning, Mac wraps his arm around Dennis’s shoulders and turns them both to face Dee proudly, as though they’re one unit.

“You told me last Christmas that you picture God as a woman,” Dee says quickly.

Mac’s shouting goes on for so long that Dennis has time for a long, hot shower that unwinds aches in his back he didn’t even realize he still had. He spends time on his hair, does his skincare routine with painstaking slowness and makes sure he gets every pore. By the time he’s done dressing and puts away the leftovers from dinner, Dee and Mac have migrated to the couch and their argument has simmered to more of a bicker, the kind that won’t give Dennis a headache if he sits near the fray. Pleased, he takes the chair and tries to tune into _Say Yes to the Dress_ with only half the episode left.

“But God’s not real,” Dee tells Mac during the next commercial break, picking up their fight as smoothly as if they hadn’t paused to yell at Theresa that that neckline did not go with her body shape. “So even if He _is_ a He, you can’t prove that he’s not bisexual.”

“What the hell are you talking about? He impregnated the Virgin Mary.”

“Just because He gets some chick knocked up doesn’t mean He’s not bisexual.”

“But He’s not! They didn’t even have sex, He got her pregnant through divine intervention.”

“You mean immaculate conception?” Dee snorts. “Mary Magdalene—”

“—was a completely different character, Dee, come on!” he complains. “How the hell do all you stupid liberals expect me to take you seriously when you can’t even keep the virgin and the whore straight?”

“Are you serious? Like, two seconds ago you couldn’t even remember the right word for her pregnancy!” says Dee, her eyes wide and amazed.

“Can any either one of the Marys kill me before this fucking conversation goes on any longer than it already has?” Dennis mutters.

“My mother,” Mac starts angrily, “my mother always says that winning fights isn’t about who can use the most words good—”

“Oh yeah?” says Dee. “Did she also tell you that she smokes for her health?”

“My mom can do whatever she wants, Dee,” Mac says sharply. “This is a free country. And to demonstrate that to you, I’m going to smoke a cigarette. Right now. In this apartment. _Just_ because I can!”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Dee snarls. “The smell sticks to the furniture!”

“You would know,” Dennis snorts, and they both look at him as though they forgot he was there. “That’s how Mom caught you in high school.”

Mac grins, bright and cheery—especially when set in direct contract to Dee’s deep scowl.

“Exactly,” Mac says, like that settles it. “Dennis, give me a cigarette.”

“What? No!”

“Come on, I know you keep them hidden somewhere.”

“Mac, _don’t_ —” Dee warns.

But Mac scrambles up and starts rifling through her drawers. He finds a stray pack before Dee can even get near him—lucky guess, but bad for everyone involved when she gets a feral look in her eye and launches herself across the room the second Mac gets it lit.

“You guys are gonna burn this place down again!” Dennis shouts, jolting up and ignoring them both, going straight for the window. He nearly tears off the blinds with how fast he yanks them aside. “Mac, go out on the fire escape—”

“No!”

“Mac, I’m serious,” he growls.

“It’s a free country!”

“What is that?” Dee interrupts. Her voice is new and strange enough to pull Dennis up short, but she’s not looking at him; she’s staring right past him. “Is that your stuff?”

Dennis turns around. The box of her things, which he and Mac dumped out of the closet to make room for the RPG, sits completely exposed behind him. _Shit_.

“Uh—”

Dee’s already stomping over. She shoves him out of the way.

“Oh, goddamn it!” she whines, stamping her foot. “Why is all my stuff out on the fire escape? Mac? _Dennis_? What did you assholes—”

“We needed to clear out the hall closet,” Dennis interrupts in a clipped tone. She arches an eyebrow, making it sound lame when he finishes, “We had...something to put in there.”

“What the hell could be so important?” she demands.

Mac’s looking at him too, they both are. Dennis swallows, diverting his gaze entirely. His eyes dart to the offending closet and down to the ground, then up to Mac’s face. Mac must see something there, because as he watches Dennis without so much as blinking, his eyes get suddenly wide.

“Well?” says Dee.

“We needed a place to stash the rifle I got him,” Mac says.

Everyone freezes, just for a second. That was good, Dennis thinks; there was nothing in his voice at all, no hint of any underlying secret. Strange. He would’ve expected it to sting, the complete disinterest with which Mac recounted what happened, but it doesn’t. Dennis feels some of the anger ebb from the center of his palms.

“Rocket launcher,” Dennis corrects through gritted teeth. Well, he didn’t expel _all_ of the anger.

“Seriously?!” says Dee. “You guys threw my shit outside so you two idiots could play with your stupid toy?”

“It’s not a toy, Dee,” Dennis says. The urge to protect that afternoon flares inside him hotter than ever. He wants to tuck it somewhere deep inside—or at the very least shove the memory behind him and Mac, who’s come to stand beside him. Under the couch, out of her view. “It was—”

“It was a gift, something _you_ wouldn’t understand,” Mac says coolly. His shoulder brushes Dennis’s when he shifts his feet.

There’s just something in the tone of his voice. It relaxes the set of Dennis’s shoulders. It deflates the balloon that’s blown up in his chest, expanding past what he can hold, cracking his ribcage from the inside out. They catch each other’s eye, glancing to the side in the same exact second; Mac shoots him a barely-perceptible smile.

No one says anything. The balloon threatens to pop. Dennis watched a documentary once that said some serial killers inject an empty syringe in between victims’ toes. All that empty air does something to their blood vessels, fucks them up from the inside out. By all accounts, their symptoms look like a heart attack; he wonders if that’s what it would feel like, if the balloon popped and all that nothingness had nowhere safe to go. Actually, maybe it was just an episode of Law & Order.

“I’m tired,” Dennis sighs, looking down at the floor. “Can we shelve this argument? We’ve got...bigger shit to worry about.”

Neither Mac nor Dee says anything for a minute. When Dennis looks up, Dee’s got a weird expression on her face: Her eyes are a little bigger than usual. It’s unnatural, like the phase they went through when they were eight, trying to prove the existence of twin telepathy. The two of them used to sit on Dee’s bed for hours, staring at each other with their eyes wide as they could pop them, concentrating with all their childhood might on sending through their thoughts.

“Fine,” Dee says, and her expression shutters over. She glares at Mac, says, “Put that out, asshole,” and slams the window shut.

“Good,” Dennis says.

He inhales slowly, his eyes drifting closed. It makes it easier to concentrate on steady breathing. In, and out. Those stupid bitches from Youtube don’t know shit. He’s got to remember to unsubscribe.

“Good,” Dennis says after a moment. “Let’s just...Let’s just go to bed, okay? And focus on something that _actually_ matters in the morning.”

It sounds sort of like a question. Dee rolls her eyes.

“ _Whatever_ ,” she says acidly, and stomps around him. “I call first shower.”

She slams the door shut behind her, and Dennis heaves a sigh.

“Okay, great!” Mac, as ever, seems oblivious to the tone of the room. He claps his hands together. “Where do we sleep, Dennis? Does this couch pull out or something and I never knew about it?”

He reaches down to pull at one of the cushions.

“No.” Dennis automatically touches his wrist to still him, then realizes what he’s doing half a second later and yanks his arm back—clears his throat, straightens his shirt. “No, her couch is...just a couch, Mac.”

“Then what? Do we have sleeping bags or something?”

He never thought he’d feel this way, but suddenly he misses the days one of them slept cocooned on the floor or couch with the other on the hammock above him, even though that arrangement did a number on his back. He couldn’t stand straight that entire year, he swears it. Mac started giving him back rubs last spring, they turned into full-body massages. He thought he’d never work out the kinks in his lower back; it took three months on a real bed to feel remotely normal again.

It’s weirdly embarrassing, admitting the truth; like showing your parents your first apartment when you know it looks like complete dogshit. You don’t have any money to fix it, and you did your best, but they’re still judging. You’re even proud before they walk in the room and you suddenly see through their eyes the awful decor and sparse furniture you found on the street.

“We actually lost a bet,” Dennis says stiffly. His tone makes Mac stand straighter, his eyes narrowing. “We sleep on the bed with Dee.”

“We share a bed with _Dee_? Jesus Christ,” he says, eyes flicking to the closed bedroom door. “How the hell do we fit three people in that tiny thing?”

Dennis twitches.

“Four,” he admits begrudgingly. “There’s four people.”

“What?” says Mac, hands flying all around his head as he yells, “Did Charlie somehow worm his way in there too?”

“No,” Dennis admits, wishing he were anywhere else.

He’s saved having to introduce Mac to the concept of the strange old man who sleeps at their feet by the arrival of the marvel himself. Dennis checks his watch; ten p.m., right on the dot. He’s always meticulously on time, which is suspicious because Dennis has never seen him touch a watch or a phone.

“It’s easier if I just show you,” Dennis sighs, squeezing past him to get down the hall.

Old Black Man mumbles a hello to Dennis and beelines for the bedroom. To his credit, he barely spares Mac a glance. Dee’s going to be pissed he’s there when she gets out of the shower, but hey—she knew what time it was when she went in there.

“Who the hell is that?!” Mac demands, not bothering to lower his indignant whisper. He says a few more choice things but Dennis hushes him insistently, not wanting to risk making their sleeping situation any more awkward and ludicrous than it already is.

“We lost a bet when we lived in the suburbs,” Dennis explains, instinctively wrapping his arm around Mac’s shoulders so he can whisper in his ear. “Frank bet us we couldn’t last a month.”

“And we couldn’t?” Mac says. There’s a huge frown sitting front and center on his face.

“No, we did,” Dennis assures him. “There’s just—There was a caveat. So we bailed.”

“Why did we move to the suburbs?” Mac murmurs, almost like an afterthought, just for himself.

Dennis elects not to answer that one.

“Look, just roll with it, okay?” he says. He’s steered them into the kitchen, just trying to get as far away from the bedroom as he can. Absentmindedly he begins pulling down their mugs and two bags of tea. “We’re almost out of here anyway, if you pitch a fit Frank’ll probably come up with some bullshit new rule we have to follow instead.”

“Almost out of—What, like almost out of Dee’s apartment?” he says. For the first time, hope touches the disbelieving lines in his forehead.

“There was another bet,” Dennis tells him. He’s frowning now; Mac thinks Dennis doesn’t know he cheated, but he does. Such bullshit that the rest of the gang wouldn’t listen to him. “Our year with Dee and Old Black Man’s almost up, and we redid our old apartment. You got to decorate.”

“What, like I actually wanted to?” he says, disgusted.

Dennis laughs. “Yeah,” he says, just looking at Mac for a long moment. The frown etches itself deeper into his face, but he doesn’t seem as angry anymore.

Mac contemplates all this new information while Dennis finishes tea. Mac takes his mug without looking down.

“Okay,” he says eventually. Dennis looks up, confused, as he’s pulling out a chair at the table. With his pointer finger aloft, Mac clarifies, “For _one_ night only. Then I’m gonna figure out something else.”

Dennis snorts. Mac looks at him.

“Good luck, man. You, me and Dee have brainstormed every possible scenario we could come up with to get out of this,” Dennis explains. He spreads his hands. “We can’t.”

Mac mutters something that sounds like, “We’ll see about that after _I_ have something to say about it.” It would be a lot more intimidating if he wasn’t hiding half his face behind a mug with kitten whiskers painted on it.

They get ready for bed quietly. All their clothes are still in boxes around the living room so they’re standing there pulling on pajamas in the dark, the other two already fast asleep in the next room. Dennis kicks the edge of a box by accident, and he curses, hobbling backwards. He looks down, ready to kick it again in anger this time, when he looks inside and sees the hazy shadow of what he placed carefully on top of the rest of the contents. He forgot he solved that—one mystery down.

“Hey Mac,” Dennis whispers. He ducks into the box near his feet. “I found the perfect solution to your no-phone situation. Catch.”

He’s got a big smile on his face, not that Mac can see it. Dennis hears the dull thud of him clutching plastic.

“What’s this?” Mac’s voice is open. Dennis can see the outline of his shape turning it over and over in his hands.

“It’s a walkie talkie. You got me the other one once.” Dennis holds up his. “This way we can still reach each other, you know, since you don’t have a working phone.”

He waits, not sure what he’s expecting—praise? Recognition? But Mac’s silent so long that Dennis grows worried and slightly uncomfortable. He suddenly wishes he could see Mac’s expression, but also knows, somewhere deeper down, that he wouldn’t like what he’d find. He doesn’t know if he has words for the faces he’s picturing.

“Come on,” he says eventually when the discomfort overwhelms him. He bumps Mac’s shoulder when he passes, deftly swiping the walkie talkie from Mac’s open palms in the same breath. He sets the pair down carefully on the end table. “Time for bed.”

Mac follows him wordlessly, and they don’t speak again as they climb beneath the sheets. After twenty or so minutes, when he’s long since heard Mac’s breathing even out, Dee turns over on Dennis’s other side. He feels the mattress shift and knows she’s up, trying not to cross the invisible line between them that denotes both their personal space.

“Hey Dennis,” she whispers. Dennis lets his eyes drift shut; maybe she’ll go away. “Dennis, I know you’re awake.”

Goddamnit. He curses and peeks one eye open, not that she can tell since he’s looking at the back of Mac’s head and it’s even darker in here than the living room, the window blinds snapped shut.

“What?” he hisses back. “I’m trying to sleep, you hag bitch.”

“I just remembered, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

He waits, but she doesn’t speak for a long thirty seconds. Dennis says, “ _Well_?”

“What were you guys fighting about before you—before the first time you went through?” Dee asks. Something else creeps into her voice—something Dennis might consider a note of apology if it was coming from anybody but his bitch sister—when she adds, “We could hear you screaming at each other through the walls.”

“So?” He and Mac are always screaming at each other.

“So,” she says impatiently, “so Mac was saying something about you bribing someone and disappearing?”

Dennis scowls. A rush of fury boils in his stomach, fast and consuming as an oncoming wave.

“He didn’t know what he was talking about,” Dennis spits, trying to keep his voice low as he can. If he wakes Mac up now, he’ll throw a fit until morning. “He was snooping, when he knows _better_ than snooping. And I thought you did too, Dee.”

The last part comes out as a threat. Dee says nothing for a minute, and he can only hear the sound of sheets rustling. He smiles victoriously.

It slides right off his face when she asks, “What the hell could freak you out that bad?”

Dennis stiffens, his whole body turning to ice. Or stone. Who was that freaky Greek chick who cursed men to become statues? He’d be a great statue. They could put him up in the Louvre or something. 

“How much clearer can I be asking for you to _mind your business_ ,” he tells her through gritted teeth, clutching at the image of himself, immortalized in youth forever—of course he’d make them sculpt a version of him at age twenty-five, or thirty, because he’s picturing it as more of a sculpture now than some Ancient Greek bitch’s vengeful murder—to stop himself from rolling over and strangling her where she lays.

“It must have been _really_ bad,” Dee surmises. Indignation flows through him when he registers that she doesn’t sound as commiseratory as he thinks she really should. Dee just states it like it’s a fact—one she doesn’t particularly care about.

Both of his eyes are open now, and he’s wide awake and staring at the back of Mac’s head. His hair looks thicker than it does at forty, did Mac’s hair start thinning and Dennis didn’t even notice? Or maybe he’s just got it shellacked with so much gel. He didn’t shower today. Dennis really doesn’t miss _that_ phase, he looked so stupid trying to emulate Luthor all the time; at least at 28, it’s not pressed down all the way. He’ll get to that phase later. For now, it’s carefully but meticulously tousled. If he’s trying to permanently emulate bedhead, he should figure out a less greasy-looking solution.

It’s weird, Dennis thinks. He might actually know more about Mac’s patterns, Mac’s progression than he does his own. And he keeps _very_ diligent notes.

“Just forget about it, Dee,” he tells her, just blinking in the dark at the back of Mac’s head. “It doesn’t matter. I couldn't...It doesn’t matter anymore.”


	6. stole a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

**2005**

They check Charlie’s place, Dee’s place, the diner at the corner. The next day they can afford to skip, it’s the post office, gas stations with the best prices for fifteen miles, two Wawas on opposite sides of town. The next day: Top three locations for their monthly night out, Dennis’s tailor, the bowling alley where Mac puked shitty beer into shittier toilets. Then the laundromat they use when the one at their building’s broken, the park Mac says has the best cheesesteak cart in the city, the fountain Dennis uses for its healing properties, the place on 7th with a chipotle burger so good it made Mac cry. The next day, and the next day, and the next day.

It’s two weeks of near-constant anxiety, skipping work whenever they can to go searching in whatever places they can come up with. It’s all increasingly unlikely—just anywhere their other selves might have gone. Dennis’s bravado hasn’t shrunk, but Mac suspects that he, too, is running out of ideas.

“I need to eat,” Mac complains. “We’ve been at it for over two hours already. I’m  _ hungry _ .”

This morning, they checked the movie theater and another Wawa a little further out than their usual rounds. It’s the only one this side of Jersey that stocks some weird candy that Mac loves, but Dennis doesn’t like the neighborhood or the drive, so they don’t go very often.

“I know that,” Dennis says impatiently. “You’ve been bitching about it for the past forty-five minutes straight.”

Mac looks away so Dennis can’t see him pull faces. Dennis throws his weird candy on the counter, only giving Mac a spare glance that nevertheless manages to be disparaging, like Mac’s the one who started sniping.

Mac frowns out the front window while Dennis strikes up pleasant conversation with the checkout girl. There’s a stray cat at the back wheel of the Range Rover outside, pawing at the paint. He’d better not scratch it, or worse, leave fur on the tire. Dennis will freak if he thinks his car’s been defiled somehow. Plus, Mac knows strays have fleas.

“Let’s  _ go _ ,” Dennis says, tugging on his elbow. “Jesus, Mac, pay attention for once. I swear, our doppelgangers could walk by right under your nose and you wouldn’t even notice.”

“They aren’t doppelgangers, Dennis,” he mumbles, kicking the ground. The Dennis he knows is viscerally, achingly real.

“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes. The sun’s bright, and he lifts a hand to shield his eyes. “Oh, is that a cat? Get out of here, you mangy little shit! Go on!” 

He jogs to the car and kicks out in the stray’s direction, but the cat darts away before he can come close and wheels into a crouch near the front of the car, his ears laid flat and eyes watchful. The right one has a big, dark brown circle around it, but the rest of him is bright orange. Mac pulls Dennis behind him and crouches down.

“Be nice to it, Dennis,” he murmurs. “It’s just a baby.”

“ _ That _ is not a baby,” Dennis says, crossing his arms.

“He’s so cute,” Mac argues. He stretches a hand out. “It’s okay, little buddy. Come here.”

“Mac,  _ don’t _ ,” Dennis says furiously. “I don’t want some runty, disease-ridden animal biting off your hand—!”

His warnings are unnecessary. Mac slouches nearer, and the cat takes off in the other direction like a bat out of hell. Mac starts to follow but he doesn’t even get to the driver’s side door before Dennis grabs his shoulder and pulls him back. He’s not strong enough to actually force Mac but his touch does what his muscles can’t, and stops Mac in his tracks.

“You’re insufferable,” Dennis informs him. “Get in the goddamn car.”

Mac doesn’t sulk. He’s just—unhappy, that’s all. A very  _ normal _ type of unhappy. Dennis has been rude to him and he wouldn’t let Mac foster the orange cat, so it’s entirely reasonable that Mac doesn’t say anything to him except to tell him to put on a seatbelt and spends the rest of the ride with his arms crossed. Dennis drives silently too, not even turning on the radio as they speed through the bright city. There aren’t clouds today, Mac notes as he looks out the window. He doesn’t know what direction they’re going. They pull up behind a small, out-of-the-way diner.

“What’s this?” Mac asks as he gets out of the car.

“You said you wanted food, right?” Dennis cuts him a look.

“Yeah.” Mac pauses. “Have you been here before?”

“Took a girl on a date here,” Dennis says vaguely.

The waitstaff is cheery enough, if a little absent. They don’t seem to notice the customers unless they’re being asked a direct question, and even then they don’t make any effort at all to look like they care. Mac appreciates that; he doesn’t feel like making small talk with anybody today. He gets why Dennis likes it here too, so he can be left alone. Mac, of course, doesn’t count on that score.

Dennis orders a huge salad with a shit load of things chopped up on top, but Mac goes right for the sandwiches. He stuffs enough modifications into one of the larger lunch specials until bits are falling out of the bun, but Dennis barely spares a glance for the mess he’s making except to delicately pull a face.

Mac finishes the sandwich first and just picks at his fries, even though they’re half the reason he got this in the first place. He can feel Dennis watching him as he sips on a lemon water, but Mac doesn’t look up until after he’s sure Dennis turned his head away. 

“Why are you mad at me?” Mac blurts out.

Dennis’s head snaps up. “What? I’m not mad at you.”

“You  _ seem  _ mad.”

“I’m not mad, Mac,” he says firmly, in the same voice he uses when he definitely is mad about something. So annoying when Dennis won’t just tell him what the problem is, because then Mac could fix it, but then again convoluted answers and dodging questions was always part of the deal. Mac doesn’t mind  _ that  _ much. Dennis thinks he’s so mysterious—it’s a good thing Mac’s a natural at spotting what’s beneath the surface. It’s in the sweep of his eyes across the room, how stark the veins on his pale hand stand out, all along the rigidity in his shoulders. It’s in whether he’ll meet Mac’s eye, and how his voice sounds, that tells Mac if he should expect a punch or praise. Mac can sense good days and bad days by the set of Dennis’s mouth against his first cup of coffee.

“I just think,” Mac says, slow and deliberate, “if you tell me what’s wrong then we can talk about it and—”

“Talk about it?” says Dennis. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“You seem mad! And Dr. Phil says to never go to bed angry—”

“You’re watching Dr. Phil now? Seriously, is middle age  _ that _ boring?” says Dennis.

Mac crosses his arms.

“I’m not middle aged. I’m still in my thirties.” For a couple more months, anyway.

“And I’m not angry, okay?” says Dennis. “So quit asking about it. God.”

“If you’re not mad, then why are you snapping at me?”

“I wasn’t mad at you before!” Dennis says, slamming his fist on the table. “But you’re being annoying as  _ fuck _ today, so I am now!”

Mac scowls. Dennis stabs his fork viciously through a piece of diced chicken.

“Bitch,” Mac mutters, and Dennis cuts him a glare.

They finish eating in silence. Dennis cleans his salad bowl, but Mac still hasn’t made much progress on the fries when Dennis says, “Mac?” in a whole new voice than before, and he looks up.

“I think maybe they’re...gone,” Dennis says.

It’s very blunt, and it doesn’t make sense. Mac’s even more confused because Dennis says it as though they were right in the middle of a conversation about it.

“Yeah, I know, dude,” he says, brow and voice slanting down at the same time. “That’s the whole fucking reason we’ve been out looking for them for two weeks.”

“No,” he says. Mac leans back, startled; he sounds strangled, and quickly clears his throat. “I think maybe they’re gone, like...gone gone.”

Mac frowns.

“What, like dead?”

Whatever Dennis hears in his voice clearly sets off alarm bells, because he jumps forward to lay a hand on Mac’s forearm.

“No! No, no no no. No.” He squeezes Mac’s arm. “Dude, I just meant—I don’t know where they went, okay? But it’s been  _ weeks _ . We haven’t shown up at home or any of our usual haunts around Philly.”

“So?” This isn’t Dennis’s fault, but Mac can’t help feeling aggressive. “What, now you’re just gonna give up?”

“No.” Dennis scowls.

He pushes his plate away to set his hands in his lap, arms rigid and face set, but although Mac keeps glaring, Dennis doesn’t elaborate on what he’s thinking or what he means. Mac exhales noisily.

“I just think—” he begins, trying to calm down.

“I don’t give a shit what you think,” Dennis snaps.

“You’re the one who stopped giving a shit,” says Mac, leaning across the table towards him. “Don’t treat me like the bad guy!”

“Maybe I just don’t want to listen to your dumb-dumb opinions when I’m trying to think,” Dennis snarls. “We haven’t found anything so far, and we’re driving places to look for them that are only getting more unrealistic! I mean, this is ridiculous! We’re never going to find ourselves this way, Mac, where do you think they’ve been  _ sleeping _ this whole entire time?”

“I don’t know, a hotel? Hey, maybe we should check—”

“Your overbearing mother hen routine is getting on my fucking nerves,” says Dennis. “I don’t know what happened, okay? But there’s something really fucking freaky going on, and I don’t just mean you showing up out of the future like some kind of fucked up Time Traveler’s Wife! Not just all that bullshit, no. There’s something else. So if you could  _ please _ , just  _ shut the fuck up _ for one minute and I’ll figure out what we can do!”

Mac bites off the top of his French fry and imagines that it’s Dennis’s head.

They pay for lunch and, stymied and out of ideas, both still smarting from their fight, they head back to the bar together. They don’t decide it aloud but when Mac notices they’re driving back that way, he just looks out the window and continues ignoring him. Dennis turns on the radio this time, loud.

Paddy’s isn’t teeming, but Mac is still surprised by some of the younger faces. He’s not used to having more than five customers at a time, let alone people who stand out from the usual crowd of drunk, faceless older barflies that usually populate the booths sparsely. Now young men are leaning on pool cues chatting, women share a pitcher in the back corner half-hidden by shadow. Occasionally somebody glances around with the kind of furtive curiosity mixed with fear that Mac knows like the taste of his favorite drink. Wondering, does anyone know? Reminding yourself that it doesn’t matter, but still glancing around to see if you know someone you might recognize. Or more pressingly, who might recognize you.

Mac and Dennis settle at the counter side by side. Mac’s spine is stiff, and the first time Dennis nudges his elbow and wordlessly holds out his beer for Mac to crack open against the bar, he turns his face away and ignores it. Dennis grumbles but doesn’t ask him again, and waits for Charlie to come by and fetch him a bottle opener.

“Hello?” Neither of them look away from staring morosely at the wall of bottles, sulky and silent, their elbows nearly touching. “Hello, excuse me? You work here, right?”

Mac glances over his shoulder. The guy’s skinny and young-looking, tapping at Dennis’s shoulder. Dennis grunts and shrugs him off.

“Hey,” says Mac, and the kid’s gaze jumps to him. “You got ID, short stack?”

He draws back, features pulling together in irritation and a touch of arrogance as he takes Mac in.

“Who are you?”

Mac turns fully around in his seat. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Dennis spinning too.

“I’m the bouncer,” he spits, taking care to puff out his chest. “Who are  _ you _ ?”

The kid’s eyes get wide, his gaze jumping between the both of them. It lingers on Dennis, but he doesn’t offer any help—to either of them. Mac sets his jaw.

“S-sorry, man,” the kid says. He reaches into his back pocket. “I’m just...I was just looking for a drink.”

He turns to go.

“Wait a minute,” says Mac. “Are you old enough to be in here?”

“What?” He looks startled, glancing at Dennis again. “I—Yeah, I’m—”

“Oh, leave him alone, Mac.” Dee’s bored voice drifts from the back office, and she follows it out shortly thereafter. She rolls her eyes and shares a glance with the kid. “He’s in here all the time. Come here, Benny, I’ll make you a vodka soda.”

He jumps on the chance to get away from Mac and Dennis and doesn’t look back. Mac and Dennis share a glance.

“He looks like he’s sixteen, Dee,” Mac complains.

Frank said he got some bar shut down a couple years ago because he sicced the cops on them after filling the place with underage kids. Paddy’s was lucky a decade ago—or, he guesses, in a couple months from now. After the prom fiasco, they all unanimously agreed to ban minors from the bar—and never talk about that night ever again.

Mac’s head starts hurting, a dull ache above his left eye that’s started throbbing whenever he thinks too long or too hard about the mess they’ve gotten themselves into. Shit.

Dee gives him a look, pulling him out of his thoughts, and Mac looks down at the bar. The kid gets his drink and leaves, and Dee comes over wiping her wet hands on the back of her jeans.

“You two have got some  _ super _ weird energy going on,” she says, eyeing them both with derision. “What’s up?”

“Mind your fucking business,” Dennis snarls, at the same time that Mac says, “Dennis thinks we died and he doesn’t feel like looking for us anymore.”

“I didn’t say we died!” Dennis shouts, rounding on him. “I just said that we don’t know what happened. And we don’t!”

“Well, you don’t want to keep looking for them!” he insists.

“Yeah, because they’re probably not even in Philly anymore! Jesus,” Dennis says, running his fingers back through his fringe. “You have us running all over the fucking city, Mac, and they’re _ clearly _ not here.”

“So what do you think happened?” Mac yells, not really expecting an answer.

“I don’t know if they’re dead, or they ran away or  _ what _ . But—”

“Exactly, we don’t know!” Mac says. “So how can you just  _ give up _ until we—”

“What good is it doing? Huh?” Dennis demands. He cranes closer like he’s waiting for Mac’s answer, but he doesn’t give Mac time to speak. “That’s right, Mac. Running around like idiots for this long, it’s not helping at all. We need a different approach! Or...or something.”

“Or something,” Mac repeats, scoffing the words. He can’t think on them too long or take them too seriously. “Great plan, Dennis. Is that what you’ve been cooking up all fucking afternoon?”

“I spent my time better than whatever  _ you’ve _ been doing,” says Dennis. “Fucking sulking ‘cause I yelled at you for two fucking seconds, you could try growing up, Mac. Jesus.”

Mac folds his arms.

“That’s not why I’m upset,” he lies.

Dennis rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

“Any other approach would be stupid,” he says stubbornly.

“Better than anything you’ve come up with,” Dennis sneers. “We tried your plan, Mac. It didn’t work. They aren’t in the city.”

“Guys?” says Dee.

“Your plan isn’t even a plan!” Mac says, shouting again as he tosses his hands in the air. “It’s just…it’s just you justifying the fact that you’re giving up!”

“It’s a plan to go back to work and make some goddamn money while we figure something else out, instead of wasting our time.”

“Pussy,” Mac mutters.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, you’re taking the pussy way out!”

“Guys!” Dee shouts.

They round on her in unison. “What?!”

“Jesus,” she says, blinking at them with huge eyes. “Calm down, what has crawled up your guys’  _ ass _ ?”

Dennis scowls.

“You had something important to say?” he reminds her, sickly sweet in a disturbing way. Mac instinctively leans back, flinching for the blow.

But Dee just rolls her eyes, sets her hand on her hip and says, “Have you guys stopped for one second and even  _ considered  _ the chance that you guys aren’t, you know...here?”

“Huh?” says Mac.

“Yeah, no shit,” Dennis hisses. “That’s what we’re fucking arguing about, Deandra.”

Dee glares at him.

“That’s not what I’m saying, asshole.” She frowns. “I’m saying, what if they aren’t here at all? I mean, what if they’ve gone back to...Where are you from again? 2040?”

She looks Mac up and down, and he sneers.

“Do I look sixty years old to you?” he demands.

Dee snorts. “Close enough.”

“Listen here, bitch—”

“Wait, Dee,” Dennis says slowly. “What do you mean, like they...They went back to the future?”

“Great movie,” says Mac.

Dee shoots him a rude glance, which is so uncalled for.

Ignoring him, Dennis pushes on:

“How would they even do something like that? If—If they figured something out, why wouldn’t they tell us? Why wouldn’t...older me come back and take you instead? Before they went back—”

“We don’t know,” Mac says suddenly. Dennis stops abruptly, not like him; he turns to Mac with his mouth ajar, just staring, as though he can’t help it from the second Mac starts to talk. Very like him.

“Huh?”

“We don’t know how we got here,” Mac says. “So we couldn’t...come back and fix things. To swap us back that easily.”

“Then they couldn’t have just jumped into the future intentionally either,” Dennis says, touching his chin. “They wouldn’t know how.”

“So what?” Mac asks. “You’re thinking it’s some other freak accident?  _ That  _ soon after?”

On the other side of the bar, Dee grins and cracks open a beer.

“I knew you guys were magnets for trouble,” she says, shaking her head.

“How is that helpful?” Dennis asks her. “How is that attitude helpful to us at all?”

“It’s not.” She shrugs. “I just thought it was funny.”

“We’re getting off track,” Mac says, swiping his arm between them to make them back off; he can sense an argument between them from a mile away. Detriments of living crammed between siblings for so many months—even longer, actually, counting the year Mac and Dennis slept in her living room.

“Yeah, no, you’re right,” says Dennis. He shakes his head, turning away from Dee completely as though that immediately blocks her from his mind, and from the way his whole face relaxes, it seems to work. “So...What’s the plan?”

“Well, so we have to get back to them, obviously!” Mac says.

“How do you plan on doing that?” Dee says. “You just admitted that you have no idea how to go back or forward in time.”

“ _ Excuse me _ !” Dennis says. “Sorry we didn’t read up on time travel before all this happened!”

“Yeah, Dee,” Mac sneers. “I didn’t realize I should’ve invented a time machine before 2005!”

“Well you’d only really need to invent it by whenever you’re from,” Dee points out, sounding mild. She waves her beer at them. “‘Cause then they could hop on into it and come get you two losers out of my bar.”

“It’s  _ our _ bar.”

“Just to be clear, I’m not going anywhere,” says Dennis, narrowing his eyes at her. After a moment, he straightens. “Wait, Mac. Last we saw them, they were going into the bathroom, right?”

Mac frowns. “Yeah. So?”

“So you guys came out of the back office.”

“Okay?” Mac asks, feeling more impatient the longer Dennis takes to get to the point. “And?”

“So it’s not tied to any one location, Mac,” he says as though Mac’s the one being difficult. “Whatever happened to them could happen anywhere.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like there’s some huge outbreak of people warping into and out of the past,” Dee points out.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Dennis murmurs.

Mac frowns at him.

“Think about it,” Mac says. “If it  _ is _ specific to the bar…”

“But you guys still disappeared in different rooms,” Dennis says impatiently.

“Maybe…” says Dee. “Two different disappearances though.”

“What?” they ask, a beat out of sync.

“You came out of the future from the back office,” Dee explains. “And went back to the future in the bathroom.”

“You think that means something?” Dennis asks. He doesn’t sound irritated anymore, though he narrows his eyes; he leans forward and strokes his chin, seeming to genuinely consider it.

Dee shrugs.

“We don’t know that,” Mac says quickly, glancing at her.

Her head whips over to glare at him.

“You just don’t like that I thought of it instead of you.”

“No! No,” Mac protests. “I just think it’s stupid to waste our time considering shit like this when we  _ need  _ to be focusing on how to get back!”

“And we can’t do that until we know how you got here in the first place.”

“Sorry that I’m not living in the past, Dee.” He rolls his eyes. “I’m actually trying to  _ solve _ our problem, not wallow in it.”

“Well, you do,” Dee says, smirking at him. “You do live in the past, now.”

“Shut up, bitch! Dennis?”

She looks at her brother too, her chin set. “Dennis.”

“What?” He sounds vague. For the first time, Mac really looks at him—but he’s still just stroking his chin thoughtfully, nursing his beer.

“Don’t you...don’t you agree we start thinking about what to do next?” says Mac. He nudges Dennis discreetly as possible beneath the counter, out of Dee’s view. “Dennis?” 

“Huh?” He sits up, blinking hard. “Oh. S-Sure, Mac. So what’s your plan?”

Mac frowns. “My plan?”

“Yeah. What’s your plan?” He leans closer, giving Mac a look. “To get back to 2017?”

“A plan? I don’t have a plan,” says Mac. “I thought  _ you _ had a plan.”

“I don’t have a plan,” Dennis yelps.

“Well we need to think of something!” Mac strokes his hair, then remembers he tousled gel in it today and meticulously pats it back into place. “Okay, let me think.”

“Good,” Dennis says. He turns away, propping his elbows on the bar. He’s smiling, just a little, into his beer when he says, “Get to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one's shorter than the rest....i tried for two weeks to beef it up but this is all she had to say. next one will be extra long!


	7. i have only two emotions: careful fear and dead devotion

**2017**

“What do you want to do today?”

Mac kicks Dennis’s feet beneath the breakfast table. Dennis rolls his eyes.

“I don’t know, Mac,” he answers. “I was thinking we could go to work, and do our jobs.”

“Nah, that sounds boring.” He had an extra large cup of coffee today and it shows; his cheeks are permanently pink, his heart rate must be up. Dennis always has to remind him not to use Dee’s big mug, even when he’s older. “Let’s go see a movie.”

“I don’t want to see a movie, I want to pay rent,” Dennis tells him flatly.

“ _Ugh_. Fine,” says Mac. “I’m taking first shower.”

He gets up and dumps his trash, clattering the dishes all over the sink. Dennis breathes out steadily through his nose.

“Get it all out of your system now!” he calls after Mac as Mac disappears into the bedroom. “You’re in an annoying mood today, and I’m not dealing with it for a whole entire shift!”

“Fuck you!” Mac calls merrily. A second later, the water turns on in the tub.

Dennis forces himself to methodically finish his breakfast. He rinses his dishes and puts them in the basin; fuck Mac, it’s _his_ turn to start pulling his weight and do a couple of chores around here. He barely opens his wallet for any reason, he needs to pitch in somehow.

Feeling a little more satisfied imagining Mac taking care of Dennis’s dirty dishes later—probably cussing, banging everything around and breaking a glass or two, it wouldn’t be the first time, they need a new set anyway—he gets up and starts laying out an outfit to wear after his shower.

“It’s nice out. Are you sure you don’t want to skip work?” Mac’s blithe as he jumps in the passenger seat of the car. He immediately cranks down his window and runs his hand along the side of the car, Dennis gives him a look.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he says. “Watch the merchandise.”

Mac does a double-take. Then he splits into a big smile, pats the open window one more time and pulls his hand inside the car.

“You still have the Range Rover,” he says. “Nice.”

“What?” Dennis glances over at him. “Oh yeah. Of course, man, this car is like my baby.”

Mac fiddles with the buttons on the dash, more than just the music today. He flicks on the A/C a few different times like he’s forgetting what the dial does.

“All this still works, too? Damn.”

“Yeah, I keep her in perfect condition,” Dennis tells him, eying him from the corner of his eye. Has Mac gone insane? “What are you doing, dude? You were in this car like two days ago.”

Mac shrugs.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t paying attention to the car.” He says this as though it’s very obvious. “I don’t know if you _noticed_ , but I have some big things going on. You know, what with appearing suddenly in the future like a straight Marty McFly.”

Dennis blinks.

“Marty McFly wasn’t gay,” he says.

“What? Yes he was, you saw how he dressed.”

“It was the 80s, Mac,” Dennis says impatiently. “I’ve seen childhood photos of you! You dressed exactly like that the entire time you were nine.”

“I did not, I looked _cool_ in my puffy vests!”

“Oh, you are _so_ delusional,” Dennis scoffs, turning down a scenic route to avoid a stretch of morning traffic. “If Marty McFly was gay, then you dressed like a little pipsqueak homo ‘til you hit middle school.”

“I was a jock,” Mac snarls.

Dennis snorts, glancing to the side. He looks Mac up and down.

“Your t-shirt has a dick on it,” Dennis says mildly, turning back to the road.

“This?! It’s the outline of a gun!”

“That gun’s got big balls.”

“You are _so_ homophobic, Dennis.”

“I’m homophobic? I thought you weren’t gay.”

“I’m not, I just…” Mac scowls. His cheeks always get so red when he’s furious. God, Dennis forgot how round they were before his jaw figured out how to make some sharper angles. “Whatever. You see dicks in everything. _You’re_ gay.”

“Wow, that was a good one. Smart _and_ mature.”

“Thanks,” Mac hisses. He crosses his arms and looks out the window in silence for the rest of the drive.

“Are you going to ignore me all day?” Dennis wonders as they climb out of the car. This is great, maybe he’ll say yes and Dennis will have a quiet, peaceful day for the first time in his entire life. Well—since he met Mac, anyway.

“Give me five more minutes,” Mac says. He already sounds almost over it. “What do you think causes rifts in time?”

Dennis whirls around, startled. “Is that what you’ve been thinking about this entire time?”

“Yeah,” says Mac. His eyes look even bigger on a thinner, smaller face. Jesus, he looks just like Bambi. Or one of those teeny, yippy dogs whose eyes bug out of their head. “What, haven’t you?”

“Trying not to think about it actually,” Dennis says tightly.

“Really? I don’t get that.” Mac lets him into the bar first. “I wanna know everything. What if we can jump into the Stone Age. What if we can see what it’s like in 2050!”

“The world will be on fire and we’ll be getting kicked out of old folks homes.”

“The world’s not catching on fire, Dennis.” He rolls his eyes. “That’s just what those liberal sheep say to get us to vote for Al Gore.”

“Statistically, the world is catching on fire. It’s doing that.”

“Whatever.” Mac looks him up and down. “That’s just preparing the masses to burn in Hell.”

“It amazes me that I’ve invested so much money in you,” Dennis says. “I let you come up with our _business plan_.”

Mac frowns. “Why are you being a dick, bro?”

“Get me a beer and maybe I’ll think about apologizing.”

Glaring suspiciously, Mac goes and does it. He cracks the bottle cap off on the edge of the counter for him first.

“You can’t seriously have thought that I’d apologize to you,” Dennis says.

“Dennis, you’re an asshole,” he complains. “Say you’re sorry to me!”

“No,” he laughs, shaking his head.

Mac pouts for all of two minutes. He’s still thrumming with energy, swinging his head as he looks around, methodically reorganizing the bottles behind the counter and straightening underneath the bar. He’ll have a major crash this afternoon, probably nap it off in the back office or the basement for a few hours. Never should have let him and Charlie drag a couch down there.

“Spit it out, Mac,” Dennis says without looking up. One of the barflies left the newspaper out and he’s found a half-started crossword puzzle inside.

Mac looks up. “What?”

“You clean when you’re anxious,” Dennis informs him absently. “Speaking of annoying habits that you have, what’s a four letter word for fussy?”

“I don’t know. Anal?”

“Gross, Mac,” he snickers. “Get out of the gutter.”

“What?” He grins. “I’m not wrong.”

“Shut up. Go ID that guy.” Dennis points out a middle-aged, dad-looking type by the jukebox. “Put on some better music while you’re over there.”

They should update their selection. Mac finds one of the few tolerable songs on the reel and squeezes in next to him at the bar, mostly just dripping condensation from his beer all over the paper and making the ink smudge, turning all his crossword answers indecipherable. Dennis swats his hand away as he jabs at one of the boxes, talking right through Dennis’s concentration with answers that all had the wrong amount of letters. Dennis shakes his arm off his shoulder three times, but the fourth time Mac puts it there without thinking he accepts the steady, heavy weight holding him to his seat and just moves his newspaper a few inches to the left.

“There’s an ‘M’ there.”

“No, there’s not. Get your hand out of the way.”

“I’m telling you this word is ‘decorum.’”

“So you think the famous Monroe’s name is Marmlyn?!”

Mac frowns, examining the page again. “Oh.”

Dennis fills in another couple of answers, erases one, and then realizes that Mac hasn’t piped up in a couple of minutes. Dennis looks up.

“What, you enjoyed ‘anal’ but you’ve got nothing to say about this?”

Mac’s facing backward, both elbows behind him on the bar. He squints into the middle distance, clearly thinking very hard about something. Before Dennis can ask, one of the old regulars saunters over and catches Mac’s eye first. Dennis searches for his name; Ernie? Arnold? He gazes heavily at Mac for a long moment.

“Beer?” the guy says.

Mac’s eyes slide sideways, meeting Dennis’s. Dennis shrugs, totally mystified.

“Uh...Sure, man.”

Mac gets him what’s on tap, but the guy’s still staring while Mac counts out his change.

“What?” Mac asks finally.

The old guy just watches silently for another long, horrible silence. Eventually he grunts out, “You look younger.”

Dennis coughs, drawing both their attention.

“He, uh...He finally started using the skincare routine I’ve been telling him about,” he says. “Takes off ten years, doesn’t it?”

He and Mac both watch the old barfly on tenterhooks. Finally the guy says, “Huh. Good for you,” and saunters away. Dennis lets out a breath. Mac looks where he’s gone.

“That was surprisingly easy,” Mac says eventually. “What’s wrong with my skincare routine?”

“Uh, it’s nonexistent?” Dennis arches one eyebrow. “You barely wash your face every day. You need at _least_ half a dozen products to stay young—”

“Half a dozen, huh?” Mac’s head lolls his way and he casts him a smile. Dennis pauses, swallows. “Hang on, eyelash.”

He reaches out, brushes one hooked finger along Dennis’s cheek. It takes Dennis a beat too long to catch his hand and push it away.

“I’m going back to bartending,” Dennis says. He shoves away from Mac’s suffocating proximity until he’s far gone enough to think.

Mac just spins and watches Dennis come join him on the other side of the bar.

“You’re really just gonna do your job today? There’s some seriously crazy shit going on here,” Mac says.

“Yeah.” Dennis shrugs one shoulder, eyes focused on making a gin and tonic. “What else should we be doing? We can’t do anything about it—the whole time travel thing. Besides, what would _you_ be doing if you were still back in 2005?”

Mac thinks this over bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“I guess this,” Mac says. He splits into a grin like he’s just solved some kind of amazing puzzle. Dennis glances at him, suppressing his smile.

“What, irritating the shit out of me?” he asks.

“Yeah. Probably.”

Dennis laughs to himself, shaking his head.

“Yeah, I guess you’re good at that,” he concedes.

“Lots of practice,” Mac gloats. Then worry touches his brow, and he adds, “You’re kidding, right? You don’t _really_ think I’m irritating?”

Dennis avoids his eye about that one.

“You seem kind of hyped up today, man,” he says instead. “I told you not to have that much coffee, you never listen to me.”

“No, it’s not that,” says Mac, waving his hand in the air. “It’s just all so exciting.”

Dennis raises his eyebrows. “Being trapped out of time is exciting? Don’t you mean horrifying?”

“Coolest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Mac says, shrugging. “You got something that could top it?”

Dennis thinks about this. For a split second he remembers the look on Mac’s face the day he came out for good, but then he says, “You met some of the UFC guys once when you were marketing around for Fight Milk.”

“Woah, seriously?” He leans forward. “That’s awesome!”

“Yeah.” Dennis smiles to himself; Mac was so damn happy that day. Wouldn’t shut up about how handsome they were for three weeks straight. Dennis was really annoyed at the time, but the memory doesn’t burn so much anymore. “Oh, you won a shot from center ice at a Flyers game once.”

“What?! How did I do?”

“You ate shit, obviously.”

“Aw, goddamn it. When _I_ get to do that, I’m gonna get it right. I’ll just train better or something.” He shrugs.

“And you’re gonna change the future for that, huh?”

“Yeah,” Mac scoffs. “What, like you have a better reason?”

“I don’t know. Maybe...To go back and stop Frank from burning down our apartment?” He thinks about this, then snorts. “Or at least stop you from winning the bet to let you redecorate.”

“I wanna meet up with my future wife so that we can start banging,” Mac says with relish.

Dennis suddenly feels like he’s choking on something. He takes a second to pause, then once he collects himself, says, “You think you’re really ready to get married.”

Mac does not do well domestically. Historically he’s very bad with the whole white picket fence thing; Mac thought he wanted it, but then again Mac’s been wrong about a long list of other stuff too. Dennis has seen Mac in the suburbs; Mac should not get married and settle down with a wife. Dennis is very aware of this. Just in case Mac ever _does_ get married, Dennis owes it to his future husband not to let Mac delude himself this way.

“Not really, but I’ve gotta be involved with _someone_ ,” Mac says. “What? I didn’t even have some kind of big romance or anything? Ever? Seriously?”

Dennis presses his lips together. It takes him a long minute to look back up from the bartop.

“Not really,” he says. “I guess you sort of dated Carmen on and off for awhile, but that’s not really...”

“Who’s Carmen?” Mac asks curiously.

“Some ex,” Dennis sighs. “She doesn’t even count, seriously.”

“Why not? I date her for a few years, don’t I?”

“Yeah. But you’re not…” _Really into women_ , he thinks. It doesn’t seem productive to say it out loud, Mac will only deny it. “She just wasn’t the one for you. It didn’t work out.”

“How come?”

“She met someone else,” Dennis says; at least that part’s truthful. “They’re married now. Dee’s actually the one who shat out the kid for them.”

“Gross,” Mac says fervently. “Wait, so I never had a grand romance at all?”

He sounds genuinely dejected. Dennis’s heart thumps.

Well, actually...

“I mean, you have your eye on someone,” Dennis says. He fights the hysterical urge to laugh.

“Yeah? Who is it, man?”

“I don’t think you wanna hear about it,” he says honestly, but it still feels like he might lose it any second.

“Don’t tell me what I want! What’s she like?”

Dennis raises his head, looks Mac directly in the eye.

“It’s not a ‘she’, Mac,” he says seriously.

Just as predicted, Mac scowls and looks away. The sight makes something tight and frustrated erupt in Dennis’s stomach, like a knot he didn’t know existed until it appeared, fully formed and hard as rock in his gut. He glares at the floor so he doesn’t have to see Mac’s face even in his peripheral vision.

“You’re lying,” Mac says, but it comes out weaker than he probably wanted.

“No I’m not.” Dennis thinks he sounds amazingly calm considering how much he wants to leap up and start clawing his way through every living thing in this bar. He focuses harder on the rung of the next stool he’s focusing on. “Don’t ask if it’s so fucking offensive to you.”

“Why do you care?” Mac spits, his eyes narrowed.

“I don’t!”

“You’re pissed,” Mac frets, instantly contrite. Dennis swears it’s an act, like a spoiled kid who knows he can get anything he wants if he makes his eyes big enough. “You’re mad at me.”

Well, Dennis isn’t that indulgent.

“No I’m fucking not,” he snaps. He rubs his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. “God, just shut up.”

Mac goes silent, but the hurt frustration emanating from him is palpable. Just being nearby is making Dennis’s shoulders tense.

He gets up to get away from it. Frank’s messing around with one of the pool table legs for some reason, but Dennis coaxes him into a game easily enough. Mac ignores him most of the afternoon, and Dennis beats Frank while he still has six balls unsunk and challenges him to a rematch—another easy landslide. Then Charlie comes in, redirecting Frank back to whatever he was doing with the table legs, and a few women arrive to tempt Dennis’s attention back toward bartending. He chats with them—they’re waiting for a fifth friend to join them and gossiping about work in the meantime—for a while. Their friend is nice when she comes in. Pretty and benign, and happy enough about accepting the strange bartender her friends have looped into their conversation.

It’s half past six when Dee finally arrives for her shift, sending a flurry of cool air in from outdoors. Mac brushes past him on his way to get a rag, pauses, and sweeps his hand across Dennis’s shoulder blade.

“Sorry,” he murmurs when Dennis glances back. “You had a bug on you.”

Dennis only grunts, but he watches Mac in his periphery until he moves out from behind the bar. Now that Mac’s gone, he can focus, pick up the conversation with the women that he’s been stumbling over since Mac came over and distracted him. He offers the women another round of shots.

The next song off the jukebox is classic; it came on at a party in college once while Mac was up visiting for the weekend. They invented a drinking game to the song and got half the frat guys puking all over themselves within the hour, it was hilarious—he and Mac had all the chicks in the room crawling all over them for the rest of the night. It pays to know how to outdrink.

Across the bar, Mac looks up and catches his eye. He can tell Mac’s remembering the same thing, and they share a smile.

He doesn’t join Dennis at the bar, but the next time he drops by for something work-related he discards Dennis’s empties for him and replaces them with a new beer. Dennis doesn’t halt the conversation he’s having, but Mac touches the small of his back and Dennis knows it, by the pressure of Mac’s hand. They don’t talk through their fights anymore but Dennis understands forgiveness by the set of Mac’s brow and the way he angles his body around Dennis’s.

“I’m tired,” Mac says, folding his arms on the bar—or it could be something like, “I love this song, I wanna go dance,” or “I’m staying at Charlie’s until you dye your hair blue.” Dennis isn’t listening to the words.

“Yeah?” he murmurs, looking up.

“Yeah.” Mac stretches his arms over his head, back cracking with the effort. Dennis lets his eyes drift over him. “Hey, just a couple more hours.”

“Two and a half,” Dennis returns automatically.

Sometimes he thinks he and Mac have had every conservation already, said everything under the sun to each other and are now just repeating the same words day in and day out. He can recite the conversations by heart; there aren’t too many variations. He knows exactly what Mac will say and doesn’t expect anything different. Don’t they call that insanity? But somehow they never get bored; Mac pats his shoulder, hand warm and lingering like Dennis has just told him the most important four words he’s ever heard. Dennis turns his head to watch him squeeze on by: He doesn’t go very far, resting his forearms on the bar so close that Dennis could bump his shoulder if he just leaned over an inch or two. Mac scans the room for a minute before turning his head suddenly, catching Dennis looking.

“Huh, that’s new.”

From the tone of his voice alone, Dennis considers ignoring him. He wait a beat in silence, then two. Mac is still looking at him.

“What’s new?” Dennis relents with a heavy sigh.

“You’ve got a kind of…serial killer look in your eye when you’re just sitting around bored.”

Dennis tinges pink, so light he’s sure it’s barely noticeable and equally sure that Mac’s noticed.

“Thank you,” he says honestly.

Mac gives him a strange but fond look.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” he says on a laugh.

“Oh, so you’re insulting me?”

“Just an observation,” he says, shrugging one shoulder.

“Yeah, well, you don’t seem to have a problem with it,” he snorts. “Later.”

“You’ve grown on me,” Mac agrees, clapping him on the back with a warm, lingering hand.

“You could say that,” Dennis mumbles. He’d call it something a little bit different than that. His gaze flicks sideways to Mac, to study the easy way he leans on the counter and the loose flippancy he carries on his shoulders for a couple years more. Mac’s still himself at twenty-eight, just...happier. And more hotheaded, too. What a fun cocktail repressing yourself makes.

“Don’t...say it like that,” says Mac.

His round cheeks have darkened, brushing his lashes when he looks down. Is he thinking about Valentine’s Day? Dennis is. At least this sudden shyness is easier to take than the anger from before.

Dennis sighs and watches his hands on the counter. Twist, untwist. Clench, unclench. Dig his nails in until they make crescents in his palms and then smooth his hands over the bar top until he knows all the grooves and cut marks in the wood.

“You’ll be happy, you know,” Dennis tells him quietly once he’s absolutely sure that he has control over his temper. He checks for Mac’s reaction, but his face is blank except for a slightest hint of surprise. “After. It takes a weight off.”

Mac scoffs, followed by a furtive glance. Defensive, then, and angry: Putting up walls wherever he can find them. Indifference, righteous fury, blowing the whole thing off. Shuffling through each until he finds one that sticks. Dennis knows this game.

“No,” Mac says stubbornly.

“Yes,” Dennis insists, even firmer. “It was like…”

How can he describe it in a way this Mac will understand? As far as Dennis remembers—and he _would_ remember—there’s nothing that even comes close, not on either of their radars. Nothing that they ever did or saw or went through that perfectly matches the way Mac’s forehead unwrinkled, that second time admitting it—and for good that time. Even when he was wheeling that stupid disgusting bike out of the arbritration office, there was just something...uncomplicated in his smile. Something vulnerable but not weak in his voice.

Yeah, that’s it: Dennis didn’t know, before that day, that vulnerability could sound that way. That it could sound strong.

He realizes Mac’s watching him, waiting for him to untangle it all in his head.

“It was just time,” Dennis finishes lamely.

Mac’s quiet for a minute. He’s fiddling with a bottle cap and for some reason Dennis can’t stop watching it, like some of Mac’s nerves have taken up residence in Dennis’s stomach. Finally Mac finds his perfect sneer.

“Whatever,” he says. “There’s plenty of time before that, and...How do I know you’re not lying to me anyway?”

“What possible reason could I have to lie to you about something like this?”

“I don’t know,” Mac mutters. “Sounds exactly like the sort of thing you’d think is funny.”

Ten years ago, maybe, and only because it’s Mac. Dennis scowls against the sharp, hot knife in his stomach.

“I’m not lying.”

“And I’m not…” Mac trails off. He shuts his eyes, breathes, and then when he’s calmer, goes on, “Anyway, the future’s not set in stone, bro. Maybe all this is just part of God’s plan for me.”

“To what, steer you straight?”

Mac shrugs one shoulder.

“I don’t know. Could be,” he says. “Or maybe He’s just teaching me a lesson not to listen to _you_.”

He jabs his finger in between Dennis’s ribs, his grin just as sudden as his mood swing. Dennis swats his hand down, turning his body away to put an extra inch of space between them. But he still rolls his eyes and cracks a smile, too.

“I’m surprised you’re not dying to get back to some old lady,” says Mac, shooting him a furtive glance.

“Only one waiting for me at home is you.”

Mac opens his mouth to reply but then seems to decide against it.

“Sorry,” he says instead.

“Yeah, I know.” Dennis points his beer at him. “You’re extremely annoying.”

“I meant I’m sorry for me having to look at your scrawny ass for twelve more years,” Mac informs him. “Tell me, do you ever stop upending our popcorn every time we watch a horror movie with jump scares?”

“Yeah, right around the time you stop crawling into bed with me to talk about every dream you’ve ever had.”

“You like sitting up for those!” Mac says, indignant.

“Where the hell did you get that idea from?”

“It gives you an excuse to make hot chocolate,” he insists. Dennis rolls his eyes, turning his face away. Mac crosses his arms smugly. “That’s what I thought.”

“Shut up,” says Dennis, pushing his shoulder.

“ _You_ shut up,” Mac grumbles. “And go serve that chick giving us death glares, she’s been doing it for five minutes and it’s freaking me out.”

Rolling his eyes, Dennis pushes away from the counter. It feels good to get away from him for a minute or two.

And so it goes for a few weeks: They go home, to the bar, home, to the bar and out to dinner, then home again. Sometimes they break the monotony with a walk around the park or a special breakfast drink. Sometimes a scheme catches on and they run around the city distracted for a couple of good, normal days. Mostly they just go home and to the bar, to the bar and back home. Dennis has picked up reading time travel books in his spare time, although most of it is nonsense and he doesn’t think they have a shot at building a time machine with ingenuity and as-yet-undiscovered natural resources. Mac’s started rewatching Terminator every single night; Dennis is pretty sure Mac jizzes in his briefs when he tells him they’ve made two more movies.

Today they’re in the middle of their third game of pool, having tired already of darts. Dennis is calling bullshit on a shot while Mac rolls his eyes and spills beer all over the green felt.

“That’s _absolutely_ not the shot you called, you said the purple one,” Dennis complains. Mac’s not even looking at him, and he demands, “Okay, what are you looking at?”

Mac startles. “Huh?”

“You’ve been watching the door all morning, man,” he complains. “This is exactly why you keep cheating.”

“I’m not cheating,” Mac says, waving a dismissive hand so close to Dennis’s face that his blood boils. “I’m waiting for Frank.”

“Frank?” That stymies him. When has Mac ever, _ever_ waited for Frank? “What for?”

“Got a presentation planned,” Mac says, still looking toward the entrance. He licks his lips. “You were right, bro, using the board and all that shit in the back office really makes it pop! Can’t believe I never thought of this before.” 

Dennis rolls his eyes. He should have guessed it would be something stupid as this.

“Sure, Mac, make it pop,” he drawls.

They play another round and a half of pool. Frank’s late, off fishing for crabs with Charlie. Those two recently found out that their next door neighbor moved out and the landlord just got rid of the incumbent squatters, so there’s half a month before the lease renews and somebody new moves in. The neighbors have a balcony; Frank and Charlie found a grill on the street and recently hooked it up outside, and they invited the rest of the gang over for a cookout that weekend. Before all this—before jumping back and forward in time—Mac promised for the both of them that they would be there.

Maybe one good thing came out of all this, then, if Dennis can convince his new Mac that they don’t have to go. He really doesn’t feel like throwing up over Charlie’s neighbor’s balcony.

“Frank! Oh, Frank. Good, you’re here,” says Mac, barely pausing to toss aside his pool cue, and Dennis looks up to see his stepfather and best friend come in through the front.

Frank barely glances at them as he settles into a bar stool. Charlie’s already around the other side of the counter, scooping out peanuts for Frank and himself to eat.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Frank grumbles. “What’s it to you?”

“I’ve got a thing for you,” says Mac eagerly. “Wait there for a second.”

Mac’s taken to Frank’s indifference like a fly to shit; as far as he’s concerned, the Frank who barely meets his eye and seems loathe to even touch him is pretty on par with the dad that Dennis grew up with. Maybe that’s why Mac acts like he doesn’t know any better, like it’s exactly what he expected from all the stories Dennis has told him and the few times they met back in high school. He brushes off apathy in a way that makes Dennis’s blood boil. Why is it so easy? It took Dennis years to even come close, and sometimes he still flashes red when he remembers that Frank owns 51% of their shares.

Frank grunts and starts chatting with Charlie about something, but Dennis isn’t paying attention to what. He’s too busy trying to stealthily rearrange two of the balls on the table so that his next shot will sink one, taking away Mac’s advantage.

“Okay!” Mac busts open the door from the back office. He slams the easel down on the floor, its legs splaying when they hit the ground. “Frank, please gather around here for me.”

It’s Mac’s first big presentation, that much is starkly obvious: The letters are too big on one side and too small on the other, like he hasn’t learned how to space it right or use stencils. He clearly didn’t find the ultra big pack of Crayola stashed away in the back office, either, because he’s only used two thirds the amount of markers than usual. He’s tried too hard but the colors still don’t match. Bemused, Dennis takes a front row seat.

Mac found his old riding crop amongst the graveyard in the bottom right drawer in the desk, where the gang throws away anything they don’t want the others to find. Damn it. Dennis was really sick of discovering that in various, incriminating places around the apartment.

Mac claps his hands together and says, “So Frank, I’ve lured you here today to talk about...the bed sharing situation.”

“You didn’t lure me here, I walked in on my own two feet. _That’s_ how men get places.”

“Great, whatever.” Mac smacks the paper with his riding crop. “Can I get started now?”

“Proceed,” says Frank, gesturing dramatically.

Mac clears his throat. In a loud voice that cuts through the din of the bar, he says, “I propose that I don’t have to share a bed with Dennis and Dee and that disgusting old stranger.”

The gang goes quiet. Dennis isn’t the only one that gapes at him, though Dee’s the only one who seems amused. Does Mac really think this is going to work? Dennis wonders, bridling with fury at the thought. Stupid, stupid man. He’s just going to dig them into an even deeper hole.

Dennis looks to his right.

“I’ll pass,” Frank says breezily. He swivels around, snapping his fingers. “Charlie, get me some more of those peanuts.”

“Wait wait wait, I’m not finished yet!” Mac says indignantly.

Dennis narrows his eyes right as Mac glances his way. Seizing the chance, Dennis circles his finger close to his chest so that the others can’t see: _Hurry up_. Mac sneaks him an obvious glance and flips the page.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Mac mutters. “Moving onto the evidence!”

“You’ve got evidence?” Charlie asked, sounding marginally more interested. He comes out from behind the bar and saunters over to peruse the board up close, thumbs in his belt loops like that will suddenly gift him with the ability to read.

Mac pushes him away.

“No lawyer talk, Charlie, this is serious business,” he says firmly. Dejected, Charlie takes a seat between Frank and Dennis. Mac taps the paper, where all he’s done is written I DIDN’T WANT THIS in huge block letters. “First piece of evidence: _I_ did not agree to this.”

“Yes you did,” says Frank, munching on a handful of peanuts. “We were all there, and that was you. It might’ve been you from the future, but that was still you, pal.”

Mac frowns.

“But that’s not fair!” he protest.

Frank snorts. “Tough titties, man. The contract we signed said that Mac, Dennis and Dee gotta share her double bed. You’re Mac, aren’t you?”

Mac reddens. He fidgets: Hands twisting together, his weight shifting between either foot.

“Yeah, but—”

“Then this case is closed.”

Frank sounds like he was having way too much fun with this. Dennis bristles and sits up straighter.

“Make your next point, Mac,” he says, watching him like a hawk.

Mac raises his head, his eyes huge. He glances at Frank, and when he looks back, Dennis gestures at him discreetly again.

“So...So my next talking point,” Mac says, struggling to regain his confidence, “is that I...I’m willing to compromise. Um…”

“You’re folding too early,” Dennis whispers.

“I can...I can take the couch,” says Mac, flipping to the next page which just reads I ONCE SLEPT THROUGH A DRUG BUST in bold. “I can sleep anywhere! And, because I’m not the version of me who agreed to do any of this, it’s at least fair to let me out of this part of the deal. Besides, it’s not like I’m asking us to move out early…”

He looks anxiously to Frank. Denis rolls his eyes; what terrible execution. Mac should have made at least ten more demands and talked until Frank was too confused to argue, until he gave up out of sheer annoyance. Dennis could have made this presentation way better and he doesn’t even know what’s on the rest of the pages. He glares at Mac, hard.

Frank adjusts his glasses and sits up higher in his chair.

“Is that an option?”

Mac stops, his mouth ajar. He shares a glance with Dennis, confused.

Mac seems too eager. Before Dennis can cut him off, to warn him about the trap he’s sure Frank set but can’t suss out yet, Mac says, “What?”

“Is that one of the options,” Frank repeats slower.

“Um…Yeah,” says Mac. “Kind of. I mean, Dennis told me that the old Mac built and decorated the whole thing. It should be good for us to move back into as soon as this bet is over.”

“Wait a minute, now...It’s done?” Frank asks. “Totally done?”

Dennis glances sideways. He doesn’t like that tone of voice, not when it comes from Frank

“Yeah, pretty much.” Mac shrugs. “Maybe it’s missing a thing or two, I don’t really know, but—”

“Nah, it’s finished,” Charlie interrupts.

Mac glances up. “What?”

“He finished that a couple weeks ago,” says Charlie. He tosses a peanut in the air and catches it in his mouth. Nothing but net; Dennis sends a silent cheer his way.

But he interjects aloud, “What?” leaning forward in his chair. “Why didn’t he tell me about it?”

“I think he was waiting for something,” says Charlie. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“The end of the bet?” Mac suggests.

“Well that too,” says Charlie. “But there was something else…He was missing some furniture or something, I think.” He shrugs. “I don’t remember, dude, I’m sorry.”

“But it is finished?” Frank verifies, and Charlie jerks his head in affirmation.

“See, we were almost out anyway,” Mac says quickly. “And—and…” He smacks his palm into the easel so hard it falls over, clattering to the floor in a mess of flying paper. “I didn’t want this, Frank, not yet anyway—and if you think about it, I might be stuck in this endless loop where I end up sharing a bed with them over and over and over for the rest of _time_ , so it’s only fair if—”

“Hold on, hold _on_ ,” Frank says, holding up his hand. Mac stutters into silence. Frank clears his throat, readjusting in his seat. He fixes his glasses and mutters, “Endless time loop, hm?”

“Anything’s possible,” Dennis jumps in immediately, seeing his chance.

He and Mac share a glance. Dennis looks back at Frank with his heart in his throat; he never thought Mac could wriggle this far into one, tiny mousehole of a solution, but now they’re so close he can taste their shitty tap water.

“Alright I’ll tell you what,” says Frank. “I’ll make you a deal. You can move back to your old apartment _if_ ...and I do not want to hear any backsass on this later...you can go _if_ you do not ask me for help moving back _in any way_.”

Dennis’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. His eyes jump to Mac in disbelief.

“Seriously?” Mac asks, glancing rapidly between Frank and Dennis.

“Or me,” Charlie says quickly.

Frank shrugs, making a noncommittal noise.

“You’re not jerking my dick?” Mac checks.

“I’m serious, man,” Frank says. He heaves himself out of his seat, sticking out a hand. Mac spits into his own, but Frank yanks his back and waves his finger in Mac’s face. “And I will never, _ever_ jerk your dick. You got me?”

Mac frowns. He holds his hand out more insistently. Eyeing him suspiciously, Frank spits in his hand in too and slaps their palms together, and they shake.

Dennis hastens to Mac’s side in disbelief the second that Frank saunters away. He yanks Mac’s shoulder, pulling him around to face him.

“That was amazing,” Dennis says.

Mac’s surprise melts clean away when he preens, sticking out his chest; Dennis is pretty sure he’s reached out and grabbed Mac’s arm, but he can’t stop taking in Mac’s shining, happy face long enough to check.

“Yeah?”

“Oh, _hell_ yeah.” Dennis shakes his shoulder. “You got Frank to agree to break the bet, and you barely had to give up anything!”

“It was easy,” says Mac confidently. Dennis wants to laugh—Does Mac mean to flex his biceps like that when he brags? Dumbass, he thinks fondly.

“I’m serious, man,” he says, steadier. “We looked for every loophole in this thing, and none of us could find a crack.”

He studies Mac’s face, which is just glowing with pride. Despite all of Dennis’s decades of compiled evidence to the contrary, maybe Mac’s not actually the most brainless person he’s ever met.

It’s strange, being around him. It’s doing weird things to Dennis’s instincts, spooling them backwards. Makes him feel like he’s twenty-eight again. Maybe it’s just knowing that Mac doesn’t want any more from him; that he’s content to keep things as perfect as they are without asking Dennis to change. Dennis doesn’t have to worry about him making a move.

“I just talked him down with my incredible negotiation skills and I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” says Mac.

Dennis grins. 

“You’re so stupid,” he chides, pushing him gently in the soft, fleshy part of his side. Mac rocks away and then back, swaying into Dennis’s orbit like he just can’t help himself. “Good job. We’ll be out of Dee’s place by this coming Monday!”

They high five. Mac laughs with him conspiratorially, ducking his head close.

“Wanna get out of here?” he asks, lower. “We can go celebrate. Get brunch or something.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Dennis says. He bumps Mac’s hip with his own. “Go wash up first, though. You’re covered in spit, yours _and_ Frank’s. It’s disgusting.”

“Whatever,” Mac says. He’s wearing a big smile as he swipes loosely at Dennis’s cheek, making like he’s going to wipe his spit-soaked hand on him. Dennis smacks him away. “Check the wait time at the Oregon. I’m not standing around for more than thirty minutes for a bacon, egg and cheese.”

“Don’t try to boss me around,” Dennis says instinctively, but when Mac glances over his shoulder on his way to the bathroom, Dennis catches his eye. He looks back down at his phone, hiding a smile. It takes him a minute to steady his hands enough to press the right buttons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so, so much to everyone leaving comments and kudos! :) i read every one and they bring me so much joy and make it easy to keep writing 💕
> 
> hope you're all staying safe and brave


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